Precious
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: they were savages. Or at least that was what their adoptive father likened them too before deciding that they needed a woman in the house to soften them. But they didn't want a sister. Until they met Uzu. Eventual Fem Naru/Kakashi
1. Chapter 1

"You boys _are_ savages." Minato Namikaze commented one day around the first of summer, as he sat at the kitchen table watching his five adoptive teenage sons fight over the pop tarts that had come up out of the toaster.

The five didn't seem to hear him. They were too busy punching and cursing each other as they all tried desperately to pry the strawberry frost covered tarts from the hands of their older and younger brothers.

Minato ducked his head a little bit as a small glass coffee mug came sailing his way, smacking into the oak cabinets behind him and shattering. Everyone went still for a second. All five pairs of eyes riveted on him for a second, gauging his reaction before someone growled. "Oh you unbelievable bastard. That was my favorite cup!" And once again the fight over the pop tarts was on. Minato's eye twitched a little bit as the five jerked each other every which way across the table before Minato stood up and pretty as you please snatched the pop tarts out of the five set of hands and he broke the tarts into pieces and handed every one a piece then glared at them all for a second then said.

"You boys are savages. So I'm going to bring a girl home with me and let her take each of you in line and beat some manners into you."

The five teens all stared at their adoptive father wide eyed. Had they just heard him right? He was going to bring a girl home? Seriously? Minato started out of the dining room and nearly smiled when his one of his younger sons growled. "No girls allowed."

This was _their_ jungle and they _ruled_ it and girls (weak, simpering, fragile at heart females) weren't allowed. _Ever. _It was just better for everyone if there was no women around. They were a house full of testosterone, and bad tempers. They _liked_ things the way that they were. And besides if they had a girl in the house then they couldn't spend their Sundays lounging around the house in their underwear like they usually did.

Minato smiled just for a second before he wiped the expression off of his face and turned his head and gave them a cold look. "I'm sorry son, did you just try to dictate to me? Did you forget for a second who was the parent and who the unruly children? Or are your balls too big for your brain?" The boy who had spoken paled and took a quick step back into one of his other brothers and stared at his father with uncertain almost panicked eyes. "I believe I just told you I'm bringing a girl home today. She will _live_ here. And all of you will be on your absolute _best_ behavior or I _will_ skin you alive."

"But Dad-"

"No buts. I've thought about this for a long time now and have decided that we need a woman's touch around here. And since I can't go out and meet a nice woman to bring home because of the mischief you all get into every time I leave the house, then adopting a little sister for you seems the best way to go."

The boys all groaned except for Kakashi who was eerily silent as he quietly ate his piece of the pop tart that he had been handed and stared at Minato as if he'd like to take him out back and bury him in a shallow grave or something. And knowing Kakashi like he did, he probably would if he thought even for a second that Minato wouldn't dig himself out and beat his ass.

It wasn't the kids fault that he had a little bit of a twisted personality. Nor was it his fault that he was territorial.

He'd had a rough time of it growing up.

But Kakashi was nothing but logical, and knew that fighting with him on this subject would get he and his brothers no where fast. Minato watched his finish off the last bite of his pop tart and lick the frosting from his fingers before he asked curiously. "What age is our..." Kakashi paused for a second and leaned his shoulder against the door frame. "Dear sister going to be?"

Because if she was under the age of thirteen, he and the others were likely to eat her alive.

"Probably fifteen, maybe sixteen. I thought that that might be for the best considering how..." Minato looked each of his sons over and shook his head and sighed before saying. "Wild, each of you are. Not only that but the small age gap will ensure that you all have more in common. It will also ensure that she isn't completely helpless against you all since you out number her five to one."

Kakashi nodded and crossed his arms over his chest and made a humming sound as he thought. "She better be cute." Kakashi said more to himself than to anyone else as something crossed his mind.

They were a house full of men, and had zero maternal instinct what so ever. If the girl wasn't cute, and she annoyed them, they'd pick her apart without a second thought. But if she was cute and annoyed them, well a little roughing up wouldn't kill her.

It might bruise and even frighten her. But it wouldn't kill her.

Minato blinked at Kakashi. He was being awfully accepting of this decision. "Your not planning to do anything stupid are you Kashi?" Minato asked suspiciously. Kakashi's siblings all looked at him curiously and Kakashi slowly shook his head.

Like Minato had pointed out before, this was his home, he was the parent, and if he wanted a daughter then there was nothing that they could do but let him bring one home. They might not like it, hell they might even resent it a little bit, but who were they to complain?

Minato gave Kakashi and his other son's a cold smile and said cheerfully. "Good. Because all of you will be responsible for her well being and happiness. Now clean up this place and take a bath and get cleaned up. I want you to make a good impression on her before you drive her crazy."


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for not updating yesterday and today. I've been busy with fixing up the house I'm moving into and seeing my grand mother Kay. She doesn't know who I am any more but that is to be expected after cracking her head open. And...

No.

I was serious about the writers block.

But just because I get a block on one thing doesn't mean that ten hundred more ideas don't form in my mind. I'm constantly thinking of something. I actually lose a lot of sleep because my mind won't settle on one thing for long.

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A little while after Minato's talk with them, their father came out of his bedroom freshly bathed, his usually wild blond hair combed back away from his face, dressed in a black suite and slacks. He looked so amazing that it was shocking. Which was why they were all staring at him wide eyed.

God this really drove the situation home for them. He was really going to bring a girl home.

It was as disheartening as having one's arms and legs broken by a loan shark.

Minato walked over to the small table against the wall a foot or so next to the door and picked up his silver and diamond watch, the father's day gift that they had all gotten jobs for so that they could get him something nice. It had taken over eight months for them to make the money to buy the five thousand dollar watch, but damned if it didn't suite him. Especially now when he was all dressed up.

Iruka, one of the second youngest kids in their make shift family reached out and grasped Kakashi's shirt in his hand and hid himself behind him a little bit and peeked out form around Kakashi's side as Kakashi looked down at him. "Dad looks-"

"Amazing."Genma said in awe.

Iruka shook his head no. "No. Dad looks-"

"Nice?" Someone else supplied helpfully.

"No! Dad looks-"

"Like he's gay. He probably is. But that's all right Ruka, he's still our father and we do love him, even if he-yow!" Kankuro yelped as Minato gripped his ear between his fingers and almost had him dangling there from his ear.

"Now you listen here you little shit bird-" Their father growled, affection lacing his tone even as he boxed Kankuro's ears then let him go. "You all have two hours to finish cleaning this place up. I want it so clean that you can eat off of the floors. Because that's exactly what you _wonderful_ little heathens will suffer if you aren't bathed, dressed nicely and waiting for us when we pull up in the car later."

"So your really going to do this? Bring a girl into our home?" Genma the third oldest boy next to Kakashi who was second oldest, asked as he walked up to their dad and straitened his tie for him. Minato smiled at the most understanding of his sons next to Gaara and kissed the boy on the forehead before Genma could step back.

The teen blinked at him and rubbed the spot where he had kissed him and blushed a little bit as Minato picked up his wallet and keys. "Yup. I'm going now. Line up."

The boys all lined up like they usually did and Minato gave each of them a kiss on the cheek except Kakashi. The kid hated being kissed for any reason after what had happened in one of his foster homes, which was why the first time Minato had kissed him on the cheek the boy had flipped out on him and knocked two of his teeth out thinking that he was going to be hurt again.

Minato hadn't held it against him, because he had been just twelve at the time and scared to death that he was in the hands of another sick person.

But Minato had sat down with him and asked certain questions then after learning what he could considering how tight lipped Kakashi was, he had gone out and made several appointments for the boy to see a therapist. And after a few years Kakashi had opened up a little bit, and had stopped being violent. Sort of. But some of his old fears still lingered stubbornly refusing to let Kakashi feel totally loved and safe and for the first time in a long time Minato wished he could murder the son of a bitch that had hurt Kakashi, but at least he could say that he helped put the sick fucker behind bars.

It wasn't as satisfying though.

He stopped in front of Kakashi and put his hands on his shoulders like he always did and gave them a small squeeze. "You be good and keep your brothers out of trouble while I'm gone. Okay Kashi."

"Sure dad." Kakashi said quietly as Minato let his hands fall to his sides and turned and walked out the front door and got into his van and drove off.

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Minato drove strait to the local orphanage and parked his car next to a fence and pulled the letter that he had gotten from his ex girlfriend Kushina several months ago, before her death and pulled it out of it's envelope and re read the words that she had written for him.

_Hey Min,_

_It's been a while, hasn't it? Almost sixteen years to be exact. Which brings me to why I'm finally writing this letter. You have a daughter. Her name is Uzu Namakaze. Yes that's right, I gave her your last name. It seemed only right should I even manage to contact you and tell you that you had a little girl. Unfortunately things never really go as planned, do they?_

_I had meant to contact you before now. Hell, I had meant to contact you years ago right after she was born. I didn't want either of you to miss out on being able to spend time together and bond. But something went horribly, horribly wrong. It's no excuse I know, but please try to understand that I couldn't contact you until now because we had to go into hiding._

_Uzu witnessed a murder when she was five, and the person involved in the murder was Kabuto. I'm sure that you've read about him in the papers, or even seen something of his work on TV. He works for a man called Orochimaru, a.k.a, the Snake._

_They are both really high profile serial killers/drug pushers, and because Uzu was seen by Kabuto, we had to run. It was the only thing that I could think of to keep us alive and at that point we couldn't involve you._

_You had already adopted three small kids and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if you or those kids had gotten hurt. So hiding just seemed the best thing to do._

_I wish that I could tell you that everything is fine, that Uzu is fine, but I can't._

_I'm dying Min. I have cancer, apparently I've had it for a long time. Uzu has been staying with me, donating blood and plasma and doing everything that she can to keep me alive but I haven't got much longer and once I'm gone..._

_She'll be easy pickings for the Snake and his men to find._

_And god I'm so scared._

_She's scared too, though she doesn't admit it. And I was wondering Min, would you take her in, even though you were both separated for so long and she's a virtual stranger to you? Would you take her in and keep those awful people after her away? I can't leave her in anyone else's care, they'd hand her over to the Snake in a heart beat._

_Please Min, I'm begging you. Take our baby in and keep her safe. I've sent a picture of her so that you can see her with your own eyes. I wish that I could tell you everything about her, but I'm getting tired and the pain meds are starting to take effect... _

Kushina's letter cut off there but he could see a little heart drawn on the page just below her letter and ran his finger tips over it as his lips curved up in a small smile. He had been so excited to see a letter from her in the mail, along with the bills and letters from his son's school. He had been so excited that he had torn open the envelope and sat down in the living room and had read everything.

He had been hoping to hear that she had married and had kids and was living a normal happy life and it had pained him to read about his daughter and how scared they were and the fact that they were being hunted. He had sat there on the couch crying for god knows how long before his boys had come home and he had hidden the letter and smiled at them trough his tears and told them that he had some dust in his eyes and then quietly and quickly walked out of the room and had sat in his bedroom trying to think of a way to find his daughter and bring her home.

It hadn't occurred to him that Kushina might die that very day, or that his little girl would be dropped off at the local orphanage two in a half days later, before her mother was even laid to rest.

He had contacted some of his friends in the police department and gotten hold of some of the state officials and finally after two months of non stop calling and asking questions, he had finally gotten answers.

And now, today, he was finally taking his little girl home.


	3. Chapter 3

"Sir. That man is here again."

Dark eyes flickered from the piece of paper in front of him to the young woman standing in the door way of his office, he frowned for a second as he tried to recall who 'that man' was, but he didn't have to think long since the person who had become referred too as that man, pushed his office door open and walked in without invitation. He scowled now. How rude of this man to think that he had the right to simply walk into his office without being asked to enter.

He was of half a mind to tell the young man to get the hell out and knock and ask for permission like a normal person but he could see from the apathetic look on his face that he didn't give a damn about being polite or proper at the moment. "Good morning, Sarutobi-san."

Sarutobi grunted and pushed the papers he had been working on away from him. "And just what is so damn good about it?" If this guy said anything about the sun, the birds or his age, he was going to stab him with his letter opener.

"What you ask? The sun is out, the birds are singing-" Sarutobi's hand inched towards the letter opener. The young man reached out and quickly snatched it off of his desk as he dropped down into the chair across form him and gave him a devious smile as he continued speaking. "And once again I am _amazed_ that you were able to get out of bed without breaking a hip."

Sarutobi stared at the glittering letter opener and silently willed it to stab the man for him. If there was a god in heaven, the letter opener would stab this annoyingly chipper young man and then he could be buried in the walls somewhere and all would be right and well with the world. "Why are you here?" Sarutobi asked in an annoyed voice.

The young man grinned at him and Sarutobi wished that that letter opener would hurry up and smite this brat before he lost his temper. "I'm here to adopt a girl."

Sarutobi perked up a little bit. Oh thank you god. He wasn't sure how much longer he could stand this man's presence if he had just come here annoy him, but now that he knew what he wanted, he could hand off one of the little nightmares running amok in his halls and wave the man and his new daughter off. And if there was a god in heaven, he would never see either of them again.

"Alright. Do you have an age in mind?"

"Sixteen."

Sarutobi blinked at him, there was only one sixteen year old girl among his darling little monsters and she was with certain disabilities that made it nearly impossible for her to behave right. The night that she had arrived, she had been dragged into the building kicking and screaming and scratching and biting like a wild animal, they had restrained her and drugged her to keep her from disturbing the other kids. And to make things even more troublesome, some of the older boys had been caught in her room the other night holding her down and touching her.

The boys had said that they were invited in yet because the girl had refused to speak, she was the only one who had been punished. She was right now laying in her room curled up on her side trying to hide the bruises from her punishment.

If he handed the girl over to this man now, there was no telling how he would react to seeing her. But on the other hand it would get rid of the girl and any possible trouble that she might cause if she stayed.

"Alright. I'll send for the child that you want, but try not to be surprised when you see her. Some of the kids have gotten into fights with her." Sarutobi lied as he pressed the intercom button and asked his assistant to go and get the girl.

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Uzu looked at the dark splotches on her wrists then raised up her shirt and used the mirror on the wall to check the marks on her breasts and her ribs with blank eyes. How could this have happened in a state appointed home? Weren't these people supposed to watch out for the kids under their protection? And yet all she had seen so far was neglect and possible victims of sexual abuse.

How many little kids in this place had been attacked like her? How many had woken up to the feel of hands running across their skin and tried to scream for help only to have a dirty rag stuffed in their mouth as they were pinned down? How many?

How many little boys and girls had those damn boys from last night touched? And how many had they probably raped? How did they manage to get away with it?

The answer was simple.

They were all orphans, all unwanted in some way or another and there for had little to no value as people. They lived in cramped little rooms, with only one or two personal effects, and were seen as little more than useless trash. Even the small children were treated more harshly than should be allowed. Because no one cared if they were hurt. If they were scared or abused.

They no longer had parents, no one to protect them. The people in this place could kill them if they desired too and there wasn't a damn thing that anyone could do to stop them.

She dropped her shirt back into place, pulling at the hem until it hung well below her hips and looked down at her ankles, under her black skin tight pants, she had bruises there too along with the ones on her ribs, and a matching one on the side of her face where she had been hit during her 'punishment' last night because she had been so shaken by her attack that she hadn't been able to speak to dispute the word of the boys who had attacked her. Not that it mattered any.

If she could manage to get close to a phone today, she'd report this place and the people in it and have the whole damn thing closed down.

She walked back over to her cot and sat back down on it when she heard the lock on her door click a second before the door opened and Mr. Fuck shit's asshole assistant peeked in. "Get up. You're to come with me to the office."

"If this is about what happened with those stupid pricks last night, then no thanks." Uzu said tiredly. The man looked as if he wanted to choke her. Uzu didn't care, she was tired. Her bruises and the emotional stress from the attack before her punishment had kept her awake and alert all night, anxious about whether or not someone would come after her again.

The man rolled his eyes and walked into the room and grabbed her and jerked her up off of the bed. "I don't have time to hash it out with you bitch. The boss is calling for you and you will come with me to the office even if I have to beat you into compliance."

Uzu didn't say anything more, no matter how much she sort of wanted too. It was pointless to argue with someone who would carry through with their threat if she dug her heels in any further. She she stayed silent and let him drag her down the hall to the main office and wondered if there was any way that she could escape.


	4. Chapter 4

Minato paced back and forth across the office floor, anxious and trying to contain himself as the office door opened a little bit and a young girl was shoved into the room. Minato froze and looked her over, his eyes wide, his expression thankfully blank as he noted some of the small things that he noticed about people before he talked to them.

She was so small for someone sixteen years old. The top of her head just barely reached his chest. Her body was delicate and slender, almost frail looking really. As if someone had been starving her. Her hair was lighter than his, a pale silvery blond that reminded him of his mother's hair when he was a little boy. An inherited trait that he might never have known about if he had never gotten Kushina's letter to him.

She lifted her head a little bit and looked at him and for a second all he could see was her beautiful deep, deep blue, violet eyes. Another inherited trait among the women in his family. He was a bout to smile, to introduce himself as her father when he caught sight of the dark blueish purple spot discoloring her left cheek.

His eyes narrowed and he growled and she stared at him wide eyed for a second before jerking her head down and trying not to look as frightened as she felt.

Automatically he crossed the room to her and lightly used his hand to lift her head so that he could look at the mark better and couldn't help the vicious stab of pain in his chest. She was shaking a little bit, he could feel it against his finger tips as he looked over her face.

She was beautiful, even under the dark spot marring her other wise angelically perfect features. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. But it probably didn't look that way to her if the fact that she tried to flinch away from him was any indication at all. He let go of her and looked back at the old man sitting behind the desk. "How did you say she got hurt?"

"The other kids. She would pick fights with them."

Minato thinned his lips and made a soft growling sound. "Your lying."

"I am not!"

"Yes. You are. If she were half as violent as you say she is, she would have broken bones-" Minato reached out and grasped her hand in his and ran his thumb over her knuckles as he lifted her hand for the old man to see. "Here in her hand. Defensive wounds. But as you can see, she doesn't have any of those things. So tell me Sarutobi-san and please keep this in mind, I signed the document stating that I am her father now and if you or anyone in this place have done anything to hurt my little girl, I will see you suffer for it if I don't decide to kill you out right. Now, what really happened?"

"Some of the older boys snuck into my room last night and attacked me-" Uzu said softly, her words barely above a whisper. She didn't know who this man was, but the fact that he seemed to be trying to get answers about her bruise helped her come out of her shell a little bit. She could detect the outrage and anger in his voice and got the feeling that he was one of those people who couldn't stand to see others hurt or abused in any way.

He looked down at her, his dark blue eyes glittering like sapphires, dark and angry. "What did they do to you?"

"Nothing much."

"So how did you get that nasty bruise?" The man asked as he dropped down to one knee in front of her so that they were eye level.

"I was punished because I was too shaken up to say anything about what had happened..." The man gave her a small tight lipped smile and stood up and looked at the elderly man behind the desk.

"Is she telling the truth Sarutobi-san?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"Is that so?" Minato said more to himself than to anyone else as he studied the elder. He was such a horrible old goat. Minato said nothing more as he dug out Kushina's letter and handed it to Uzu, she had had a rough time of it and god willing, the letter might put her more at ease with him. She looked down at the paper in her hands and sucked in a breath as she read her late mothers hand writing.

This was- But how did- This letter had been sent too her-

She looked up at the man with a hopeful expression on her face as he put his arm around her shoulder and finished telling the elder sitting behind the desk that he would be filing a report with the local police for child abuse after he had his daughter checked out by a doctor.

They left the room, and Uzu felt almost dizzy with relief as he maneuvered her down the hall and out the front door and then stopped when she grasped his jacket sleeve and tugged on it a little bit. He looked down at her and sighed. "You know who your mother sent the letter too right?"

She nodded and he smiled and leaned down and hugged her. "I'm glad that she mentioned me at some point. I was hoping that knowing who I am would make things more easier on you."

"Then your my dad?" She asked in a shaky tone and he just squeezed her a little tighter as he thought about what she must have been through for the past two months and tried to think of a way to explain what had taken him so long to find her if she thought to ask.

"Yes baby. I'm your daddy."

"W-Why didn't you c-come s-sooner?" She was crying now, her small body shaking harder and harder with each sob. His heart aching in his chest he picked her up and carried her to the van as he told her how hard he had looked for her, how much he had wanted to see her and just how damn _sorry_ he was that he had come so late.

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Well, this isn't a bad story is it?

It doesn't have a lot of detail in some chapters but that will change the more it goes.

I actually like this particular idea, and even though it seems sort of out there I will probably re write it at some point in time.

Anyways read and review.


	5. Chapter 5

They stood out on the porch like Minato had asked them too, the only problem was that he was three hours late due to the fact that he had taken Uzu to the hospital to be checked out to be sure that she hadn't been sexually assaulted by those damn kids in the orphanage and had forgotten to call his boys.

So he expected them to be even more pissed with him than before, but frankly they could be as pissed as they wanted, he didn't care. He had been worried about his little girl and had a perfectly valid reason for losing track of time and being late.

He pulled the van into the drive way and looked at his boys, all standing on the porch and cringed. He'd have to make this up to them later on but for now he needed to take Uzu inside and put her to bed since she was still suffering form the sedative that she had been given by the doctors at the hospital when she had nearly taken a nurses head off when he had tried to strip her so that she could be checked out.

He unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the drivers seat and quietly closed his door as Iruka came running down the steps and grabbed him. "Where the hell were you? You said we had two hours. Two! Not five. Did you forget how to count?"

"Be quiet Iruka. I'm sorry that I'm so late but I'll tell all of you what happened as soon as I get your sister settled in." Minato said softly as he pulled his arm free of Iruka's grip and gently ruffled his hair, completely defusing the boy's anger before turning around and opening the passenger door and moving in close so that Uzu was leaning against him as he reached across her lap and unbuckled her and then scooped her up in his arms and moved back a little bit and kicked the car door shut behind him and glanced at Iruka who was trying to sneak around behind him and see the girl in his arms a little better.

"Knock it off Ruka." Minato said as he started walking across the yard to the house and noted with some amusement that Gaara was holding the door open for him as he walked up the steps. He was almost home free when Kakashi stepped into his path and looked at Uzu.

"Kashi-"Minato said warningly as the teen looked her over.

"What's wrong with her?" Kakashi asked curiously. He just couldn't believe that the frail and small looking creature with the silvery blond main was a kid their own age. She was too small and sickly looking.

"She's had a very rough night Kashi and needs to sleep for a bit." Minato said as he tried to step around the boy, but Kakashi stepped back in his way.

"What took you so long?"

"Kakashi I don't want to talk about this now-"

"What. Took. You. So. Long?" Kakashi bit the words off from between clenched teeth, his irritation showing through. Minato growled and finally snapped at him.

"I had to take her to the hospital to have a rape kit done. There are you happy? I thought I would be bringing home a perfectly _normal_, and _happy_ girl to join our family and instead I find out that she had been _attacked_ and _beaten_ because of a bunch of jackasses, now if you don't mind I'd like to get her inside. Move damn it!" Minato snapped at the suddenly wide eyed and pale young man. Kakashi looked like he was about to be sick as he staggered back into the house and Minato took a deep calming breath and said in a softer tone.

"Fuck Kashi I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap, but I'm worried and being questioned by everyone about what took me so long is a pain in the ass." Kakashi nodded his head in understanding and quickly pulled himself together and moved over to the couch and sat down on the arm of the chair as his father stepped into the house and made his way over to the stairs leading to the second floor and took them two at a time until he reached the top then made his way down the short hall to the room that he had been secretly fixing up for Uzu these past two months.

He kicked the door open and walked across the new aqua colored rug covering the floor and laid her down on the twin sized bed with aqua and lavender sheets and covers and carefully took her shoes off and pulled the top corner of the blanket over to cover her as he recalled what the doctor had said.

There had been a little bit of vaginal tearing, but it wasn't hurting her and her hymen was other wise intact. So aside from that and the bruises on her wrists, ankles, ribs and breasts she was fine. A little under fed, and small for her age but other wise healthy.

He smoothed her hair back away from her face and smiled a little bit when she muttered something in her sleep and rolled over. He stood up and turned to walk out of the room and found Gaara, Iruka, Kakashi, Genma, and Kankuro standing in the door way looking a little upset and anxious. Minato put his index finger to his lips, indicating that they should be quiet and shooed them back a little bit and slipped out of the room and gently closed the door behind him.

The first thing he did once he was out of the bedroom was hug Kakashi to let him know that he hadn't meant to snap at him like he had. Kakashi patted his back and muttered that it was okay, he understood all too well how stressed one could get when someone they cared for might have been hurt that way. "Come on down stairs and we'll have a family meeting okay."


	6. Chapter 6

The next day started out like any other day for the boys.

They crawled out of bed, grabbed some clothes and got dressed and went down for breakfast. However there was little bit of a difference in their daily routine. They all took showers and made sure that they were wearing clean clothes, that they had brushed their teeth and were wearing deodorant, and their hair was all nice and brushed.

It was one of the small rules that their father had laid down for them. Now that there was a lady in the house they weren't allowed to run around in their boxers, smelling like sweat and BO. Why? Because it was offensive to a woman's delicate sensibilities. Or at least that was what their father had said after their long, long talk about who the girl really was and why their father had brought her home.

They knew that Uzu was the girls name. That she was sixteen years old. And their fathers honest to god biological daughter, that her mother had died two months ago when Minato had learned about her from a letter that he had gotten and that he had been trying to track her down since then. And that she had been attacked; and it might take a little while for her to get used to them as her brothers.

Understandable considering the past two months that she had had.

Kakashi was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he heard a series of screams coming from Iruka's room and quickly made his way to the door to see who was killing him now and peeked out just in time to have Iruka run by in wet underwear, his hair soaked and soapy as Minato came tearing out of the kids bedroom with a wild look on his face and a tooth brush and a hair comb in each hand.

"Come back here right fucking now Iruka! I have to get you cleaned up so that you can make a good impression on your sister!"

"Never!" The boy shrieked as he tried to escape their insane looking father as he chased him down the hall. Kakashi blinked and shook his head as he grasped his tooth brush in his hand and pulled it from his mouth as Iruka let out a loud blood curtailing scream from somewhere down stairs.

And this was how the morning started, it was buisness as usual for them, but he would bet that it was something new and possibly frightening to their new sister. Which was why he finished brushing his teeth and grabbed a long sleeved shirt and slipped out of his bedroom to go check on her.

Uzu had woken up long before the screaming had started, and though she had been a little startled by the sound she wasn't terribly worried about it since her father was some where close by. She took a shower and slipped into one of the outfits that someone had hung up in her new bedroom closet. And was standing in front of the long mirror across the room, next to the window checking the bruises on her ribs and breasts.

The ones on her breasts didn't hurt anymore, but the ones on her ribs still hurt a bit. She dropped the black and turquoise shirt back into place and tugged at the hem in an effort to pull it down past her hips, but it wouldn't reach that far. It was kind of irritating since she was very self conscious about her body and liked being able to hide it when she could under overly long shirts and baggy clothes. But for now this was the best she could hope for she supposed as she looked herself over.

Kakashi stood just outside the door, peeking through the small opening in the door, his mis matched eyes narrowed to slits as he watched her check out the bruises on her breasts and ribs. Anger churning in his gut. He hadn't meant to look at her in such a disturbing way. Hadn't meant to see her in such a vulnerable state, but he just couldn't stop himself from looking once he saw the dark splotches standing out against her skin.

His fingers curled into fists as he remembered the last time he had seen bruises that dark and painful looking and could easily remember himself curled up on his side on a dirty concrete floor shaking and sobbing through the blood and bruises on his small body.

He closed his eyes against the memory and stepped back away from the door and turned and walked off. Finding it strange that he saw a little bit of himself in this girl.

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Everyone was quiet as they sat down at the breakfast table to wait for the resident female to make her appearance so that they could introduce themselves. It took fifteen minutes longer than any of them would have liked with the exception of their father who had gone all out cooking their breakfast this morning, yet refused to let them do more that smell the food until Uzu was down stairs and they had introduced themselves.

It was a cruel way to control them, but it was damned effective since they were all hungry. They sat there fidgiting with their shirt sleeves, their silverware, the nice linen napkins that their dad had dug out of the special occasions box in the attic and washed and neatly folded and laid out on the table along with a table clothe that he had already threatened to kill them over if they ruined it.

As soon as the clock hit the fifteen minute mark the boys all perked up in their seats when they heard small feet making their way down the stairs and across the living room floor.


	7. Chapter 7

Minato sighed and started to get up. "Christ guys I'm sorry, I didn't expect her to take so-" Kakashi made a strange sound and moved one of his hands neck level and tried to get his dad to shut up, but it was too late. The girl peeked into the room at the exact moment his father finished speaking.

"Damn long, and god knows that we're all starving. I'll go get her and-" Minato glanced over at Kakashi who was doing this weird little thing with his hand and shaking his silver topped head 'no' and Minato scowled at the boy and got a startled look on his face as he heard a soft 'Ahem' sound coming from the kitchen door way and blinked at his daughter then flushed red.

"U-Uzu! How long have you been standing there?" Kakashi rolled his eyes and banged his head on the table. God but Minato was dense. It must be because he's blond. Kakashi had always heard that blonds were stupid, and for the most part after living with Minato for the past few years or so, they sort of believe it. But what Minato lacked in brain function he more than made up for in inventiveness and viciousness.

"A few minutes." Uzu said as she peeked around the door frame into the room and stared at the group of boys sitting there. All of them were tall, the tallest one was probably around six foot three, all were sitting up strait in their seats and each of them had different colored hair and eyes.

Minato cringed a little bit, he hadn't meant for her to hear him talking about her taking her sweet time to get to the dining room. "Come on in baby, let me introduce your brothers to you." Minato said as he walked over to the empty chair that he had dragged down from the attic and cleaned off a bit yesterday evening, and pulled it out for her and waited until she came shuffling forward a little bit and sat down, and squeaked as he pushed the chair up to the table and walked over to her left and put his hands on one of the teens as she noted that she was sitting between two of the others.

"This is Kankuro-" Minato said as he patted the shoulders of a guy with dark hair and golden brown eyes. "He's the oldest of your brothers. He has few manners and a mean mouth. So if he says anything to offend you just smack him until he cries."

Uzu gave the guy a small smile. He didn't look very impressed, he did however look at her breasts and give her a devious grin that made her a tad bit uncomfortable as her father walked around her to the opposite side of her and put his hands on the shoulders of the teen with shaggy looking silver hair.

"This is Kakashi, he's my second in command and the one in charge when I'm gone. He's seventeen, and very quiet. I've asked him to go with you when ever you go out because I can trust him to take care of you and keep you from harm." Minato said as he ran his fingers through the teens hair before moving along to the brown haired kid sitting next to Kakashi.

"This guy here is Genma. He's a sweet heart. His hobbies include chewing on tooth picks, and watching his brothers. When Kakashi isn't around, he'll be the one watching you." Genma gave her a cheerful smile and waved at her. Uzu smiled at him and waved back as her father moved over to the red head with the teal eyes and put his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"This here is Gaara. He's sixteen, and kind of shy. But once you get past that shyness of his you'll find a little attention whore-" The red head blushed and tipped his head back to glare at their father. Minato grinned down at the boy and continued speaking. "So don't be surprised if he crawls into your lap at some point in time, he really is a very affectionate kid."

Uzu's lips twitched a little bit as her dad shifted his hand from the red heads shoulders and tickled his sides. The boy jerked a little bit and made a funny little sound as her dad moved on to the little dark haired boy with a scar across the bridge of his nose, and his hair pulled back into a pony tail. "This here, is the youngest of your new brothers. His name is Iruka. And he was the one screaming bloody murder earlier this morning. He's fifteen and very stubborn."

"You have a bruise on your face." The boy said in a blunt manner, earning him a smack to the back of the head from their father as Uzu lifted her hand to her cheek, her self concousness kicking in as Minato leaned down and growled something in Iruka's ear, causing the boy to pale a little bit and quickly apologize for being stupid.

Uzu's hand dropped away from her cheek and she blanked her expression and said in a cheerful voice. "I'm very happy to meet all of you." But she was lying. These guys made her nervous.

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Breakfast for them was a little different.

Everyone was quiet, there was only a few words said here and there and Kakashi kept pausing with his fork half way to his mouth and staring at his new little sister. She was such a _quiet_ and _mousy_ little thing that Kakashi kept wondering how such a person was going to survive in their home.

She took another bite of her food and he found himself stopping in mid motion again, his fork poised half way to his lips, his eyes staring at her as she parted her lips to take another bite. She had such pale pink lips, soft and lush, that he just couldn't stop staring at her. But it wasn't just her mouth that drew his eyes. It was everything else. Her hair, her face, her eyes, the grace of her movements. The way she didn't make any clanging sounds with her fork like the rest of them who were just a tad out of practice when it came to eating with utensils.

He felt Genma poke him in his side and nearly dropped his fork as he turned his head to look at his brother who looked around the table then back at Uzu. His subtle way of pointing out that everyone else was watching her too. Kakashi looked from one face to another and quickly shoved the fork full of food into his mouth to keep from growling when he noticed the less than brotherly looks that Kankuro was shooting her way.

He kept looking at her breasts and her mouth as if he'd like to put them to use on something. Kakashi figured that Kankuro would wait until noon, when their dad would leave for work before he tried anything stupid in which case Kakashi would have to straiten his sorry ass out.

Minato finished his breakfast and sat back in his seat and studied each of his sons as he thought about their personalities and tried to figure out which ones he would need to take aside and warn off, so far the only real one that he foresaw trouble from was Kankuro.

The guy was eighteen, and sexually active and believed that he was god's gift to woman kind. He saw the young man eyeing his daughter and was slightly upset by it, but he wasn't very upset because he could already see the dark looks on Gaara, Genma, and Kakashi's faces.

The three may be younger than Kankuro, but they were also the ones more likely to beat their brother's ass if he tried anything.

Kakashi was especially the most likely to attack Kankuro if he laid his hands on Uzu. He knew all too well what it was like to be in a strange place among strange people and what it was like to be abused by people with authority.

If one took that, along with his twisted and territorial personality traits, and the protective way he was with his other siblings; then Minato knew that the teen would kill Kankuro if he felt he absolutely had too, especially if he laid his hands on Uzu.


	8. Chapter 8

Warning!

Mentions of disturbing things in this chapter that have to do with Kakashi's past.

I put the warning up because it has a little more detail.

Pedophilia and abuse.

Don't like, don't read.

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Kakashi had been born with a fatal flaw.

He strongly disliked anyone who could threaten, intimidate, bully and strike a woman. His dislike of these things had gotten stronger once he had been put in the system because he could remember a few of the little girls that he had made friends with before being placed in foster homes.

He could recall the way that some of the older kids had knocked them around, and recalled how they had dragged others into closets and empty rooms and did terrible things to them just because they could. Hell he could even recall one of the little girls he had lived with in foster care and how their 'father' had taken nude pictures of her and shown them to his friends then invited some over to try her out.

She had been ten, and a pretty little thing with dark hair and eyes. He recalled her name, her face, even the way that she had always smiled when she had seen him.

And he was haunted by the memory of walking by their foster father's bedroom one day after school and stopping at the door when he had heard a strange noise and peeked through the crack and just froze. Everything in him had just froze.

His heart, his lungs, his mind. What he had seen was just so frightening and terrifying that he hadn't been able to move. He hadn't been able to look away from her tear streaked face as one of their foster father's friends slid himself between her legs. He didn't recall much more of that day other than the bile that had rose up in his throat, and slapping his hands over his mouth in a vain effort to keep from puking.

Not that it mattered much since he hadn't been able to stop himself.

He had puked right there in the door way to his foster father's room, and that was how he had gotten caught. He had been on his knees on the floor when the door had been yanked open and his foster father's friend had grabbed him and jerked him into the bedroom to 'play' with him and the girl.

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Kakashi closed his eyes and pushed back the memories, but still his stomach rebelled and lurched dangerously, causing him to jump up from the couch and quickly run from the room just as their dad came out of the kitchen drying his hands on a dish towel. "Kashi you okay?" Minato asked him as he ran past him, his face pale and one hand tightly clasped over his mouth.

Kakashi wished that he wasn't about to be sick again. That he could answer and tell his dad that he was fine but he tripped and fell to the floor right in front of the sink and wretched on the off white tile and was only vaguely aware that there was a pair of small feet right in his way.

He coughed a few times and shuddered as Minato came back into the room and sat there feeling ill as he looked up and blinked at his new sister and realised that he had just puked on her feet. "Kakashi! Are you okay?" Minato asked again as he crossed the room and dropped down next to the teen and put his hand on his forehead to check for fever. Kakashi pushed at his hand and tried to look at Uzu, he wanted to apologize to her for fucking up her feet, but his stomach lurched again and he found himself puking again and moaning in distress.

God what the hell was wrong with him? He wondered as Minato pulled him back against his chest and looked up at Uzu and seemed surprised to find her standing there. "Uzu? What are you-" Uzu thinned her lips and looked down at her feet, covered in stomach acid and chewed up food and Minato cringed.

Crap. Of course Kakashi had thrown up on her, what other reason would she just stand there for?

"Is he going to be okay?" Uzu asked as she stared down at the teen that her father was holding against his chest and rocking a little.

"I think so, but he may need to lay down for a bit... Uh, look under the sink and see if you can find some bowls to use as shoes so that you can go outside and hose off your feet." Minato said as soon as his brain started working again.

Uzu leaned over a little bit and opened the cabinet next to her and dug around for a second and found two cake mixing bowls and dropped them onto the floor and stepped into them and wrinkled her nose a little bit.

This had to be the most bizarre thing to ever happen to her in the morning. "Okay. Now what?"

"Okay, now I need you to shuffle your way to the back door behind you-" He pointed, and she turned herself around and shuffled over to the back door and then looked back at him. "Okay there is a garden hose outside the door and to your right. Use it to hose yourself off and then come back in okay."

She gave him a thumbs up and opened the door and started to slip out when she thought that she heard a hoarse voice rasp a soft, "Sorry." From somewhere behind her and turned her head to look back at her dad and was that Kakashi was looking at her, his face pale, his expression pained.

She gave him a small smile to let him know that she wasn't mad or anything and slipped out the door to hose off her feet.

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Minato left for work thirty minutes late, because he had to clean up the mess in the kitchen and make sure that Kakashi was laying down so that he could rest. And once he had assured himself that Kakashi was not only laying down but had gone to sleep in his room, Minato put Genma in charge and said good bye to the others and left the house.

Kakashi's awareness flickered and faded in and out for a little while then flared back to life when he heard Kankuro say, "Alright kiddies, outside. It's grown up time-"

Kakashi's eyes snapped open and he sat up as Kankuro started to argue with Genma. That son of a bitch was going to try something! Anger churned in his gut as he heard Genma yelp as he was smacked, followed by the slamming of the front door.

"Uh, shouldn't I go outside too?" Uzu's voice reached him as he rolled out of bed and quickly made his way across the room and out into the hall and slammed the door behind him to let Kankuro know that he was up and if he found him drooling over Uzu, he was going to kick his ass every which way.

He made his way down the stairs and paused to look over the railing and saw Kankuro was sitting next to Uzu on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, and he was trying to look down her shirt. "Goddammit Kankuro, get your fucking hands off of her right now!" Kakashi growled as his older brother looked up at him and grinned as if he wasn't about to have his teeth knocked out.

"Kashi! Feeling better?"

"No, but that won't stop me from fucking up that face of yours if you don't remove your hands from her person, you prick." Kakashi said as he took the last few steps down and then stomped over to the couch and grasped Uzu's wrist in his hand and gently tugged her up off of the couch as Kankuro scowled at him.

"What is your problem Kashi? I was just trying to get to know our _sister_ a little better."

"Bullshit. You were trying to look down her shirt cause your a pig." Kakashi snapped.


	9. Chapter 9

Uzu looked at her new older brothers with a stricken expression on her face and Kakashi quickly punched Kankuro in the face since she was too distressed to hit him herself and tugged her along behind him as he walked away, leaving Kankuro sitting on the couch swearing while he bled.

Uzu was quiet as he took her up the stairs and into his room and quietly shut the door behind him and turned to look at her. Her spine was bowed a little bit and her arms were wrapped around her middle in a way that brought too many bad things to his mind and he sighed and moved to stand in front of her and used his finger tips to tilt her head back a little bit so that he could see her face.

The second he did, he wished he hadn't. She had such a beautiful face, even with the pained expression she wore, and the dark spot on her cheek, there was simply no hiding the fact that she was one of the most beautiful girls that he had ever seen. His heart hammered in his chest, and his palms started sweating a little bit and he spoke in a weak almost breathy voice that he didn't recognize as his own. "Are you okay? Did he touch you or anything?"

She stared at him through dull violet eyes and his heart clenched in his chest as she shook her head a little bit and jerked her face a little bit so that she wasn't looking at him. He looked down at his hand then at her and quickly dropped his arm back to his side and stepped away from her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get grabby. It's a force of habit when you have so many younger siblings." Kakashi said as he wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, nervously.

"S'okay." Uzu said softly as he walked over to the desk a few feet away and pulled the chair out and looked at her.

"You want to sit down? You look a little shaken up."

"Wouldn't you be?"

"Nah. I'm used to people like Kankuro getting close to me."

"Is that why you seemed so mad?" Uzu asked absent mindedly as she looked around his room. The walls were a nice sky blue with royal blue trim. Like the curtains and the bed sheets and the carpet on the floor. His room was neat, everything was piled into the shelves or neatly folded and set on the dresser. It was completely different from what one would expect from a seventeen year old boy.

Kakashi shrugged his shoulders as he watched her study his room and wondered if the almost absent minded behavior was a type of defense mechanism. "No. I was mad because Kankuro knows better than to touch anyone that dad brings home, yet he was trying to pull something any ways."

"Makes sense I guess." She said as she looked back at him and slowly, very slowly let her arms drop back to her sides and straitened her spine. He made a humming sound and drummed his fingers on the back of the chair that he was standing next too and asked again.

"Do you want to sit down?" She looked at the chair, then him. The look on her face wary. He cocked his head and gave her a slow devious looking smile.

"Afraid of me baby girl?" It wasn't so much a question. Merely him sensing her weakness and pointing it out to her. She shook her head no and he smirked at her and was tempted to call her a liar, but held his tongue as she looked at his bed then back at him. She wanted to stay well out of reaching distance just in case this was some sort of game he and his brothers were playing with her.

You know, like having one play the part of a bad guy and having the other play the part of a good guy when in all actuality they were both evil or something. He stared at her then shrugged and dropped himself into the chair and then looked at her expectantly.

She walked over to his bed and hesitated for a second as he said. "You know, if I was a _cruel_ person, then having you sit way over there wouldn't stop me from reaching you if I really wanted too-" She turned her head and looked at him, her entire body tense and he grinned at her and continued speaking. "I'm fast on my feet baby girl, so no amount of _distance_ you put between us would keep me from reaching you if I really, _really_ wanted too. I'd be on you before you could so much as scream-" He shrugged and sighed then said.

"But I'm _not_ a cruel person and reserve my speed for something better than _scaring_ little girls."

She glared at him for a second as she mulled over his words, then asked. "Is that your round about way of putting me at ease?"

He gave her a mock surprised look and leaned back in his chair. "No. That wasn't what I was doing at all. I was just telling you a simple fact about me that might prove helpful in the future. Ya know, just in case you annoy me and have to make a run for it."

Truth be told he was trying to put her at ease around him. He just wasn't the sort to pick on defenseless girls. She had surprised him a little bit though when she had asked him if he was trying to put her at ease, he hadn't expected her to pick up on what he was doing so soon. She sat down on his bed and he smiled then, a real, genuine smile and decided to try and get to know her a little better and started asking her questions.


	10. Chapter 10

"So...what do you like to do for fun?"

Uzu shrugged. "Reading, listening to music, and napping mostly."

Kakashi snorted in amusement. God she sounded like his buddy, Shikamaru, from school. That guy was so lazy that Kakashi was surprised that he even bothered to breathe just to keep himself alive. "What's your favorite color? Your birth date? Your favorite song? Did you have a pet growing up? Who was your first..." He wanted to ask her who her first crush was, but the question seemed very invasive. And besides that if he asked her that, then she would have the right to ask him the same thing, and he didn't want to recall anything else that could make him sick. So he changed it half way. "Friend? Did you have many?"

"Whoa! Slow down, let me think a second. My favorite colors are royal blue, scarlet and ruby red, white and creamy off white, lavender purple, silver, black, emerald, aqua, turquoise-"

"So almost every color in the rainbow?"

"Sort of. My birthday is October the tenth, but I don't usually celebrate my birthday until the thirty first."

Kakashi leaned forward in his seat and made a humming sound. Ah, so she was a Halloween girl.

Wonderful.

This meant that he would be escorting her around the block on Halloween this year. Meaning that he'd have to break out his base ball bat to protect her virtue, depending on how she dressed. No, wait, scratch that. She was a very pretty young woman and no matter how she dressed on Halloween, it wouldn't change the fact that she was pretty and _all_ of the guys on the block and in school would be panting after her.

"Do you usually dress up for Halloween?"

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head no and he blinked at her. "Never?" He asked curiously. Again she shook her head no.

"My favorite song is sort of a toss up between, The Mission, Mizunderstood, Sick love Song, and Till I Collapse. No pets. And my first friend...well, I didn't have one for long because my mom and I moved around a lot so I didn't really have friends growing up. I just sort of played by myself. It was less painful for me in the long run. Ya know?"

Kakashi nodded his head. He understood all right. He had stopped bothering to make friends after the last time he had been placed in a foster home, he figured that it would hurt him less if he didn't give a damn one way or another what his foster parents did to the other kids. He'd learned his lesson the hard way and still couldn't function right _today,_ because of it.

"Yeah... I know."

"What do you like to do for fun?" Uzu asked innocently and Kakashi studied her for a second before saying.

"Depends on what day of the week it is. Mondays and Wednesdays I go down to the park and hustle people for pocket cash. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go to the abandoned lot down the street and get into fist fights-" She gave him a shocked look and he chuckled a little bit.

"I'm almost afraid to ask what you do on Fridays, Satudays and Sundays."

He gave her a tight lipped smile. "Then don't ask." Because what he did on those days would likely embarrass her since those were the days that he went to the local high school and met up with the some of the school sluts and got a little action before he walked home and smoked a cigarette.

"Then I won't."

"Good." Kakashi said as he glanced at the clock on the wall just above his desk and smiled as he heard the front door slam downstairs and their father yelled.

"I'm home!"

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Okay, kittens.

I'm not updating this story again until I have at least 30 reviews.

And to move the story along I'm going to have a brief time skip of one or two months.


	11. Chapter 11

Wow, so many negative people...

You guys got off lucky considering that I was holding my story hostage to stall for time.

Do you think it's easy to make such cool shit up on the spot?

No-my dear kittens.

It takes more brain cells than_ I _have. It also takes up more _time_ and and causes_ insomnia_. And oh my fucking god the _details_ alone give me headaches!

And you know that I haven't stopped updating long enough to eat something in the past three days!

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One month later-

Uzu stood on her tip toes reaching for a bowl in the cabinet over her head so that she could get some cereal for breakfast and nearly jumped out of her skin when someone came up behind her and grabbed the bowl and set it on the counter for her. She twisted around and looked at one of her five brothers, this morning it was Kankuro who had come to her aid, and from the looks on Kakashi's face as he peeked into the kitchen, he was there to make sure that Kankuro didn't try any funny business.

Not that he had since that first time, but better safe than sorry.

"Thanks Kankuro." She said softly and he gave her a narrow eyed look as he rubbed his face with his hands and nodded then said in a sleepy tone of voice.

"Just do me a favor and hit a growth spurt soon, okay kid." He turned and slowly walked back out of the room, brushing past Kakashi as he went. Kakashi waited until he was sure that Kankuro was somewhere back up stairs before he walked over to the fridge and grabbed the cereal boxes that they kept up there and set them all on the counter for her.

"Since you have trouble reaching-" Was all that he said before he walked over to the fridge and got out the orange juice and grabbed a glass from one of the other cabinets and poured himself a drink, then glanced at her over his shoulder and grabbed a glass for her and poured her some juice and then put the orange juice back in the fridge and picked up her glass and set it down on the counter next to her bowl as he dug out the milk for her.

"What is everyone doing today?" Uzu asked as she poured some frosted flakes into her bowl and then started to pick up the milk when he grabbed it and popped the lid off and poured some for her. She gave him a curious look. Wondering why he seemed to take it upon himself to do such a simple task for her when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. Kakashi looked at her for a second, and seemed to realise what he had been doing.

Damn. He was doing it again.

He was taking control and doing every little thing for her out of habit and misplaced gentlemanly intent. It wasn't that he thought her incapable of doing such tasks herself, it was just that she was so damn small that sometimes he forgot that she wasn't as helpless as she looked. "Sorry-" He mumbled as he handed her the milk and watched her put the lid back on so that she could put it up. Once she had it back in the fridge he leaned back against the counter and thought for a second as he sipped his juice and watched her move around the kitchen.

"Dad will be going out of state for the next two weeks so odds are that we'll be doing some last minute chores, paying some bills and seeing him off a little later today."

"Who's going to be in charge when he leaves?" Uzu asked, a wary expression on her face as she picked up her bowl and juice and slowly made her way into the dining room. He followed her and pulled her chair out for her then grabbed his own and sat down. For some reason that wary look on his face set his teeth on edge and made his temper flare to life.

It had been a little over a month since she had come to live with them and she still felt wary around some of them. Not that it was entirely her fault. Between Kankuro trying to cop the occasional feel and Iruka's pranks, anyone would be a little wary of them. So naturally being left in a house with five teenage boys while their father was out of town was a little...worrying for her.

"I'll be in charge." Kakashi said honestly. He was the only truly responsible person in the house aside from Uzu and Genma, but no one would listen to Uzu, because she was a girl and they were all set in their ways. And no one would listen to Genma after what had happened the last time he had been put in charge.

Sure they had survived the fire, but their dad had been pissed _beyond_ reason to find out that they had accidentally burned down one of their neighbor's houses while he was at work. And to top that incident off, little Iruka had been so freaked that he had run from their dad and cracked his head on the concrete around the neighbors pool and had fallen in and almost drowned before anyone had realised he was M.I.A.

Minato had freaked even more and after fishing the boy out of the pool and making sure that he was still breathing grabbed _all_ of them and threw them in the van and then peeled out of the drive way like a mad man, yelling and screaming and cursing the whole lot of them as he drove to the hospital where he had all of them checked out (just to be safe) and then had taken them all home and punished them all by making them get three full time jobs to help pay the neighbor back for the damage done to their home.

Kakashi cringed a little and silently thanked god that Uzu hadn't been present for some of the things that he and the others were notorious for.

"Well, that takes a load off of my mind I guess." Uzu said as she put her spoon into her bowl and started to pick up some of the sweet flakes when he reached out and plucked a flake from her bowl rim and popped it into his mouth and chewed.

A small humming sound escaping him as he sat back in his seat and took a drink of his juice.

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Minato was in the middle of digging through his sock drawer when he heard a faint knock on his bedroom door and turned his head to look at his oldest son. "Kankuro, what do you need boy?" He asked as he caught sight of the hesitant look on his older son's face.

"I was just- What are you doing?"

"Looking for some socks. Know where I can find some?"

"You could try Iruka's room."

"Iruka?"

"Yeah. He's gotten into the habit of coveting other people's shirts and socks."

"Probably because it's been getting cold outside and he's trying to stay warm."

"Yeah. Maybe." Kankuro said as his dad gave up the search and closed the drawer and turned to face him.

"Anything else on your mind son?"

"Yeah. Actually, it's been a month since Uzu came to live here and she hasn't been able to make any friends because we aren't at school. Would it be okay if we had a party so that she can meet some of the locals and make nice for a while?"

"Is Kakashi going to help?"

"Yeah. I'll run the guest list by him before I invite anyone."

"Alright then, just make sure that there isn't any drinking and drugs and keep the guest list under twenty."

Kankuro grinned. "Yes sir!"


	12. Chapter 12

Later that day after cooking something for lunch for her make shift family, and having Genma help wash the dishes. Uzu went into the living room with a glass of juice to see how Gaara and Kakashi were doing with cleaning the living room and smiled when she caught the two boys pretend fighting with the two vacuum cleaners.

"Kshk, kshk, you are strong young Skywalker. But I am stronger." Kakashi said between funny breathing sounds to make himself sound like Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies. Gaara grinned at him and faked a lunge that Kakashi blocked with his hose and tripped his younger brother, who promptly tried to kick his legs out from under him.

"Don't bet on it Vader." Gaara mock growled at Kakashi as he jumped to his feet and attacked. They wrestled around for several seconds before Kakashi pushed Gaara down on the couch and pinned him in place with the vacuum hose.

Gaara snickered as Kakashi said his dialog. "You fight well young Walker, but you cannot win."

Gaara giggled. "Yes. I can."

"No-" Kakashi shook his head and caught sight of Uzu standing across the room holding two glasses of juice and winked at her before shifting his attention back to Gaara. "You cannot." He said again as he leaned down a little bit and ran his fingers along Gaara's ribs causing the younger boy to squirm and giggle louder.

"Y-Yes I-I c-can!"

"No. You cannot-" Kakashi said sagely as he straitened his spine and stopped tickling Gaara so that they could finish their little play. "For I am your father."

"Noooo!" Gaara shrieked as he shook his head. Kakashi snickered and waited for Gaara's voice to die down as Iruka came walking into the room. Kakashi quickly ran across the room and grabbed him up and then ran back to the couch and set the younger boy down and then continued his horrible dialog.

"Yes! It is true. I am your father. And this-" Kakashi picked Iruka up by the back of his shirt and looked him over for a second and quickly said. "Scruffy looking, flat chested person is your mother. She's been living with the Ewoks and probably doesn't remember you, but I no longer need her so you can have her back." Then practically tossed Iruka at Gaara who caught him and flipped him so that he landed on his side on the couch then pounced on him.

"Mommy!"

"Get off me right now you punk!" Iruka growled as Kakashi laughed evilly and switched off both of the vacuums and walked over to Uzu and took one of the cups of juice from her as Iruka yelled and screamed for Gaara to get off of him.

Kakashi whistled and Gaara peeked over the top of the couch at him. "Don't forget to give mommy kisses Skywalker."

Iruka jerked himself upright on the couch and glared at him as his face turned red and he stuttered. "Y-You b-bastard-" A mere second before Gaara pushed him down and leaned over him and started kissing his cheeks. Iruka screamed like a little girl and swore bloody vengeance on them as Kakashi laughed.

Uzu was laughing so hard that she was doubled over holding her sides when Kakashi sobered up and whistled again and told Gaara to run before the Iruka monster ate him. Gaara was off of the couch and out the front door before they could blink as Iruka sat up slowly and glared at Kakashi then hissed."This isn't over you son of a-"

Kakashi's good humor faltered a bit as he took a dangerous step forward and growled. "Watch your language, Iruka, there's a lady present."

"Whoa there cowboy, don't involve me in your little squabble." Uzu said as she put her hands up and slowly backed away. Kakashi turned his head and glared at her through narrowed eyes then hissed.

"Coward." As Kankuro came down the stairs whistling happily.

"What's up Kankuro?" Kakashi asked, automatically suspicious of his older brother's happy expression, though he hid it fairly well.

"We are having a party tonight and another one Friday night." Kankuro said cheerfully. Kakashi cocked his head and studied his brother. He looked stoked, so he must have gotten permission from their father. But still there were certain things that Kakashi needed to know.

"How many people did dad say that we could invite?"

"Thirty." Kankuro said without hesitation. Kakashi gave him a narrow eyed look that practically screamed, Don't-make-me-hurt-you, and Kankuro's smile faltered and he sighed and quickly amended his earlier answer.

"Fine. Twenty."

"And who will be coming to this party?"

"Ten guys and ten girls."

"For what purpose?"

"It's so Uzu can socialize with some kids her own age. She's been here a month and haven't been able to make any friends because we aren't in school right now, so her friends are sort of limited to us. I figure that we could have a party, unwind, let her meet some people, and we could all have fun." Kankuro said as he looked at Uzu.

Kakashi was right, he was a pig.

But he could be a_ decent_ guy if given the chance and had come to like Uzu as a member of the family. She was a nice girl. Quiet, and a bit shy, but nice never the less. And he really had suggested this party to help her make friends because he was a little bit concerned that she might be lonely being stuck around the lot of them all the time. After all, they were guys, and she might miss having another girl to talk too.

Kakashi looked thoughtful for a second. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew Kankuro enough to know when he was lying and when he wasn't, and could tell that his older brother was _genuinely_ concerned about Uzu. And he did have a point.

The only friends that Uzu had made so far was the lot of them. He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, carefully, since he was still holding a half full glass of juice. "Alright. Who are you planning to invite?"

"Kiba, Shika, Neji, Lee-"

Kakashi nodded his head. "All decent guys that can be trusted."

"Hina-chan, TenTen-chan-"

"Both very lovely girls, and would make good friends for Uzu-" Kakashi said with another nod of his head.

"Sauske, Itachi-" Kankuro watched as Kakashi started to nod his head again when he stopped and growled and handed his juice to Uzu and gently turned her around and asked her to leave the room then waited until she was out of earshot before snarling.

"What! No way, those two guys are the neighborhood gang bangers! You can't invite those bastards here!" Kankuro looked puzzled for a second. What was Kakashi so pissed about now?

"What? Why not?"

"Because, _brother mine_, it would be like inviting in a pair of serial rapists to a spot where there is going to be _loud _music, and plenty of little _chickie's_ to victimize."

"Oh come one Kakashi, they can't be that bad."

"Yes, Kankuro. They are." Genma said as he came walking up to join the conversation.

Kankuro looked at his third brother and shook his head. He hung out with Sauske and Itachi from time to time and they didn't seem like such bad people to him. They didn't do drugs. They didn't drink. "How would you know Gen?" Kankuro asked curiously as Kakashi glanced at Genma.

"You know that one party dad said I couldn't go too? Well, I snuck out and went. I had a little bit to drink, but not enough to completely impare my mind. And I saw Itachi talking to this girl, someone bumped into her and she turned her head to look at them, and Itachi slipped something into her drink. Ten minutes later he and Sauske were helping her back to the bedroom to lay down, and they didn't come out for almost two hours."

"Did you tell someone?" Kakashi asked curiously. Genma nodded his head. Of course he had told.

The girl who had been raped that night had gotten pregnant then committed suicide.

Genma remembered walking up to Sauske and Itachi at the girl's funeral and punching the both of them. Then told them both that he _knew_ what they had done and he was going to make sure that it _never_ happened again. And to enjoy their freedom while it lasted since he was going to make it his personal quest in life to put them behind bars.

In hind sight it wasn't the smartest move that he had ever made. Especially since they had gotten even _sneakier_ in their mischief.

Still, Genma remembered every detail from that night as if it had happened just yesterday. He figured that he owed that poor girl who's life had been ruined by the two Uchiha's, because he hadn't done anything to really help her.

It wasn't the type of mistake that he would ever make again.

Kakashi reached out and ran his fingers through Genma's shoulder length dark brown hair and gave him a sad smile. "The Uchiha's aren't welcome here Kankuro. If you want to hang out with them, then do it in the usual place."

"Oh come on Kakashi, you know that if we have a party and don't invite them, they'll come to crash the party."

"If I see them trying to cross the threshold of our home Kankuro, I'll get dad's gun and I'll shoot the fuckers. Do I make myself clear?" Kakashi said in a dangerously low tone. He meant every damn word.

If he saw those assholes trying to come into his home-the same home that he was _responsible_ for. With the kids, one of whom was a very pretty and sweet and innocent girl-then he _would_ kill them. He didn't want that type of people sniffing around his home or his siblings in any way.

_Ever. _

"Now. Who else were you thinking of inviting?" Kakashi asked as Kankuro opened his mouth to argue with him. Kankuro started to say something, stopped himself. Shook his head. Then started listing names again.

"Ino and Sakura-"

Again Kakashi shook his head no. Again, Kankuro wanted to know why.

"Okay, what's wrong with Ino and Sakura?"

"Their the school sluts Kankuro. If they come here, they'll only have one thing in mind. And if they see Uzu-" Who was by far prettier and more appealing sexually than the two of them. Then their catty personalities would come into play and they would tear into Uzu for no reason at all in an effort to destroy her sense of self worth and confidence. "They'll fight. They will try and destroy her self esteem, her self worth. And if that doesn't work then they'll try to ruin her reputation in some way."

Kankuro sighed. God Kakashi had gone from fun, to a total hen in the past month. Not that Kankuro hadn't expected this pattern of behavior from the younger male, he had. He just hadn't expected him to be so damn territorial when it came to their sister.

He was like her loyal dog or something.

Anytime he smelled someone that posed a threat to Uzu, he snapped and snarled and attacked until they backed off.

It was the damndest thing!


	13. Chapter 13

Kakashi walked into the kitchen ten minutes later looking angry. Uzu looked at him and wondered what had put that look on his face as he looked at her and sighed. "We're going to have a party tonight..."

"Oh no. The world must be ending." Uzu said dryly as he shot her a dark look and walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders and just looked at her for a second before pulling her against him and wrapping his arms around her and laying his chin on the top of her head.

"Don't be smart baby girl. You have no idea how close to the truth you are. Kankuro is going to invite some questionable people here to meet you."

"Damn, I don't suppose that I could just stay in my room or something could I?" Uzu asked hopefully against his chest. He gave a soft breathy laugh and laid his cheek against the top of her head and rubbed it against her hair.

"No. Kankuro and the rest of us want you to make friends. And sadly, until school starts up again, this is the best way to go."

"But I don't want a party. I'd rather just talk to one of you if I'm lonely."

Kakashi made a small humming sound in the back of his throat and lifted his head. "But you_ do_ get lonely. Don't you." It wasn't a question. Merely a fact that he had noticed about Uzu in the past month. Due to her upbringing, she had never had friends. Not for very long at least. And though they out numbered her five to one, she couldn't really _talk_ to any of them the same way that she could talk to another girl or a close friend.

"No. Not really. I mean yeah, I can't really talk to any of you about girl stuff, but that doesn't mean that I'm lonely." Uzu said as she buried her face against his shirt. Kakashi chuckled and kissed the top of her head then let her go and moved away from her.

"Your lying, baby girl. I can sense it... I've been watching you almost constantly for the past month, and I've seen the signs. You might smile, and laugh with us. But your heart isn't in it. Your holding some part of yourself back, and I don't like it."

She gave him a scowl and asked. "Kakashi, do you really want me to have friends that I can talk about boys and sex with? Cause that is pretty much the scope of conversation when a girl is sixteen. Because everyone is always like, 'Oh god did you see that guy?' and 'I wonder what kind of package he has?' and then there is the ever popular 'I had sex for the first time and it was awesome' Get it now?"

Kakashi opened his mouth to say something, his expression shocked. His mouth worked for a second, he hadn't been aware that that was what girls talked about. Hell, he hadn't even been aware that Uzu knew anything about the subject of sex! Wasn't she too young for that shit?

His mouth snapped closed and Uzu shrugged her shoulders and gave him a sweet smile and brushed past him as she said in a sing song voice. "I wonder what we'll talk about-" Then she stopped and turned her head a little bit and looked at him over her shoulder and grinned as she said. "Maybe I'll finally be able to talk about this guy that I have a crush on."

Kakashi's eyes widened a little bit and he growled. "Guy? Crush? What guy? What crush?" Uzu giggled and ran out of the room. He made a strangled sound and ran after her, his voice raising in volume as he went.

"Hey! Hey! Stop right there baby girl! You turn around right now and tell me what guy you have a crush on!" She ignored him and started up the stairs. He sputtered for a second and made another, louder strangled sound as his temper flared to life and he quickly started up after her yelling.

"Hey! Hey! Get back here and answer me goddammit! What boy do you have a crush on? Uzu! I'm not playing around!" Uzu slipped into her room and closed the door and locked it as Kakashi smacked the hard wood with the palm of his hand and yelled.

"I'm serious baby girl!" Bang!

"You stay away from that guy!" Bang, bang!

"Don't you know that men are the devil? He's only after one thing and I don't want to do jail time for murder!" He smacked her door three more times and stood there with his forehead against the wood, waiting to see if she said anything that might seal the fate of any and every boy that she_ would_ ever develop feelings for.

Uzu snickered and leaned her shoulder against the door and said very loudly and clearly. "There's no reason for you to kill anyone Kakashi, especially since I've already seen him without a shirt and gotten kissed by-"

There was a very loud WHAM, followed by a cracking sound that caused her to jump away from the door as his fist splintered the wood and appeared in the spot next to where her head had been. Her jaw dropped as she stared at his bruised and bleeding knuckles for a second before he pulled his arm out of the door and peeked through the fist sized opening to glare at her and bit out the words. "_Stay. Away. From. Boys_. Do I make myself clear?"

She blinked at him, her face pale as she nodded her head slightly and he stopped glaring at her. "Good. You have one hour to give me the name of the guy you like before I'm _kicking_ down the door and _tying_ you to the bed. Where you will stay, for the rest of your days, after I have a long chat with our dad."

She licked her lips nervously and stared at him, looking a little shaken. "Yeah...sure..."

He tapped the door with his bloody finger tips and said, "Good girl." Then walked away.


	14. Chapter 14

They said goodbye to their father at about four thirty that evening, which left them a few hours of spare time before the party and Uzu had been wrangled into going grocery shopping with Kakashi who had been in a surly mood ever since he had punched a hole in her bedroom door. Kakashi stood at the door waiting for her as she slipped on her shoes and grabbed a light jacket then walked down the steps and made her way over to his side.

He looked her over for a second then grabbed the keys to the spare car that their dad had seen fit to get for them once Kakashi and Genma had gotten their drivers license and picked up the credit card that Minato had left so that they could get groceries and whatever else they might need and pocketed it. "Lets go." Kakashi said as he opened the door and then stepped back so that Uzu could go out before him.

She gave him a nervous look that seemed to darken his mood even more and walked out and all but ran to the car and climbed into the passenger side and quickly buckled herself in as Kakashi walked down the steps lazily and made his way to the driver side of the car and opened the door, sparing her a small glance before sliding into the drivers seat and buckling himself in then started the car.

He played with the radio for a second before finding something that he liked then backed out of the drive way and started driving. They had been riding together for about ten minutes before Uzu broke down and finally asked him if his hand was okay.

He glanced at her again, knowing that she had tried to ask him earlier when she had come out of her room, but he had shut her down and walked away. Because the very idea of her being interested in some boy-_any_ boy, pissed him off.

"My hand is fine. Stop worrying about it." It wasn't like her bedroom door was the first one that he had ever punched a hole in.

"B-But-"

Kakashi took his wounded hand off of the wheel and flexed the fingers to prove to her that nothing was broken then put his hand back on the wheel and quickly changed subjects. "You never gave me the guys name." He kept his tone light, despite the fact that he was tense, his fingers tightened on the wheel to the point where it felt as if his palms were burning.

"Would you believe me if I said that I was just playing earlier?" Uzu asked with an apologetic expression on her pretty face. He glanced at her again, his angry simmering just below the surface of his skin.

"No." He wouldn't believe her. Because he knew in his heart that she was interested in someone. She just didn't want to tell him who it was. Not that it mattered much. He'd find out who the guy was even if he had to go around town breaking the knee caps of _every_ guy sixteen years of age and older.

He pulled into the parking lot at the local store just eight miles from the house and parked the car and unfastened his seat belt and leaned over into Uzu's space a little bit and unfastened her as he said very softly, "I will find out who he is-" And when Kakashi did find out who the son of a bitch was, he was going to go mid evil on the guy's ass for daring to get close to _his_ precious baby girl.

Uzu gave him a wide eyed look and made a little squeaking sound and quickly opened the door and climbed out and ran for the store before he could follow her out.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Kakashi was quiet as he followed Uzu around the store, his dark mood hanging over their heads like a thunder cloud as Uzu tried to find all of the items on the grocery list. And while she was doing that Kakashi was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with him. He'd been behaving like a cave man for the past four in a half hours.

He just didn't understand himself.

Normally he didn't care about things like sex or boys, but then he had never been in this sort of situation before. Not outside of his former foster homes anyways. And maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he was seeing Uzu as one of those poor abused girls that he had seen hurt. Maybe he couldn't separate his memories of what had happened in those places, and the unwanted attention that he and the other kids had gotten from the adults, from Uzu and her healthy need for male companionship.

After all it was normal for a girl her age to notice guys. And it was probably even normal for her to picture guys-

He cringed and made a small choking sound as he gagged. Uzu put the potato chips and spinach dip and salsa dips into the buggy and looked at him and frowned. "Are you-"

"I'm fine baby girl." He said quickly as he flushed and looked away. That was one of the most _disturbing_ and _disgusting_ things that he had ever thought before in his life. So it was a little wonder that he had almost thrown up just now.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Kabuto's talk with his boss the Snake, had been a bit upsetting. It had been almost three months since the Namikaze girl's mother had died and she had been taken deeper into hiding by the US Marshal's, and he had lost track of her completely.

Sad. Since she was a loose end that he and his boss couldn't afford to let slip from their grasp. Which was why he was back in her mother's home town looking for her, hoping against hope that someone in this small southern hick town had seen the girl and knew where he could find her.

He walked through the small corner grocery, picking up a few odds and ends to take back to his apartment with him so that he would have something to eat for the next week or so while he continued to look for the damned girl so that he could get rid of her.

He meandered over by the frozen foods and bumped into a kid about sixteen or seventeen years old. He glanced at the kid almost absent mindedly and noted the wild shaggy gravity defying silver hair and the mis matched eyes. "Sorry. I didn't see you." Kabuto said politely, hoping not to cause a scene.

The boy shrugged his shoulders and looked bored. "No problem." He muttered before someone came running up and dropped something into the kid's buggy. Kabuto turned away and blocked out everything else as he tried to think of where the girl might be, that he hadn't searched yet.

(*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Does anyone know what a Hubpage is?

Well, if you don't it sort of like a blog.

And I've decided to try and take some of my more original story ideas to that site and rewrite them as actual original stories.

I've started on Wicked Heat and will later on try rewriting and publishing the following stories-

Into the void-will be an supernatural story. or maybe an alien story.

The Last Cowboy

Precious

Pet

Broken Doll- this story will be modified so that it is a supernatural story if i post it.

The Assassin's Heart

Pandora Resurrection

Midnight Flower


	15. Chapter 15

She had seen him from around the corner of one of the store shelves a few feet away from him and had felt an unnatural surge of panic so strong that she had been about to topple the shelf on top of him and run like hell, but stopped herself because Kakashi was in the way. She watched warily as Kabuto, that monster that used to give her nightmares at night.

That killer that had stolen over ten years of not only her life but her late mother's life too. The one who had spattered the blood of an innocent man across her face when he had shot him point blank and killed him; he was here. Standing just a foot or so from her adoptive brother.

Looking for her.

Wanting to kill her.

She looked around and saw one of the store employee's a few feet away working on something. There was a tool box laid out on one of the bottom shelves at the employee's feet and she could plainly see a box cutter with a very sharp blade and made her way over to the employee and pretended to need to tie her shoes as the person turned their back, giving her the chance needed to grab the box cutter and stuff it in her jacket pocket before standing up and lifting one hand to pull up the hood on her jacket so that she could partially hide her features.

Stealth and cunning were the only things standing between her and certain death now. And by god she was not going to die to day. Not now that she had a home with five wonderful, silly and feirce brothers and her wonderful and loving biological father.

She refused to let Kabuto kill her.

She pulled the hood up over her head and tucked her mid back length silvery blond hair inside of the hood and tugged it down over her eyes and grabbed the item that she had been looking for before Kabuto had shown up and went jogging over to Kakashi and tossed the stuff into the buggy drawing his attention away from the killer. "Why are you wearing your hood?" Kakashi asked as he looked at her.

She put her index finger to her lips indicating that he should be quiet and grabbed the buggy with her other hand and started to slowly pull it and him, away from the killer. Her heart thudding in her chest, her palms started to sweat and she was having trouble breathing. The farther she got away from Kabuto the more her panic spilled over until they were in the front of the store paying for their things and she was trying desperately to hold by herself together.

Kakashi kept giving her funny looks as he paid for their things then pocketed the credit card again and started out of the store to load up the car when Kabuto came out of no where and bumped into her.

Her heart stopped for that one terrifying second as he turned his head to look at her. He muttered an polite apology then walked out of the store and she ran around the buggy to Kakashi and snatched the keys out of his hand and ran to the car and stood there shaking and sobbing and trying to find the key to the car. Kakashi came up behind her and reached for the keys and she reacted without thinking and tried to hit him.

He jumped back away from her and narrowed his eyes at her and swore. "Uzu! What the hell are you doing?" He was just a little suprised that she had just tried to hit him. Well, okay, scratch that. He was _very_ surprised that she had just tried to hit him. In the past month he had seen all types of behavior patterns from Uzu, but none of them had been violent. Which was probably why he suddenly felt so alarmed when he noted that she was shaking and hyperventilating and crying all at once.

He reached out again, this time distracting her before he grabbed her and she let out the most god awful, terrified scream that he had ever heard and thrashed around in his grip. He quickly subdued her and held her pinned against the car as her hood slipped down away from her face and he was finally able to see her.

She looked so scared, her eyes looked much too wide for her face, her skin was as pale as chalk and she couldn't seem to tell who he was.

Why? What the fuck had happened between now and the time that they had spent in the store?

Something had obviously happened, but what? _What?_

_No time to think on it. I need to try and calm her down before she passes out from lack of air._ He thought darkly as he leaned his head down a little bit and crooned in her ear, in a voice barely above a whisper. "Hush, hush baby girl don't you cry. Big brother will make everything alright."

She started to shake her head and he shifted his hold on her so that he could pull her up against him and hugged her tightly. "Don't try to think. Don't try to speak. Just close your eyes and let everything slip away-" Her breathing pattern changed and he smiled slightly, knowing that he was starting to reach her through all of that panic and fear.

"Your getting drowsy and want to sleep, so just close you eyes baby and start to dream-" His voice had a bizarre hypnotic quality on her frightened mind. No sooner than he said the words than her eyes slipped closed and her legs buckled and she started to fall.

Kakashi knew it was coming before it even happened, it was the one constant that occurred when ever someone was absolutely terrified and stressed to their breaking point. They lost consciousness. It was a defense mechanism that protected the heart and mind from further damage.

He caught her easily, using one of his arms to hold her upright wile he unlocked the car and opened the door and then picked her up and carefully put her into the passenger seat and buckled her in. He didn't know what had caused her to freak out when she had been acting normal before. But he would find out.

And someone _would_ pay for freaking her out.


	16. Chapter 16

"Awareness flickers on-" Kakashi said absent mindedly as he sat on the edge of the bed with his hand over Uzu's eyes. She stirred slightly a soft moan escaping her throat. "Awareness flickers back off." Uzu stilled.

Kankuro, and Genma walked into the room and frowned. "We put the groceries away."

"Now tell us why our little sister is unconscious." Kankuro said in a warning tone as he looked at Kakashi. Kakashi glanced back at them and shrugged his shoulders.

"I honestly can't tell you anything guys. I have no idea what happened to her. All I know was that she was completely and utterly terrified of something." Kakashi said as he rubbed the bridge of Uzu's nose with his thumb. Tracing the strait line and committing it to memory along with other small details like the softness of her skin and the pale pink color of her lips.

Kankuro frowned a little more and studied Uzu. Her face was pale, even under Kakashi's hand, her breathing soft and shallow indicating deep sleep. "Was she alone for any length of time?" Genma asked curiously.

Kakashi stiffened slightly and turned his head to look at them again. "For a minute or so. She started acting strange when she came back."

"Strange?"

Kakashi nodded his head sagely, his expression sober. "When she came back, she didn't talk even when I asked her something, she had her hood up over her head, pulled down over the top half of her face-"

"Like she was hiding?" Genma asked. Kakashi frowned and nodded his head again.

Now that he thought about it, that's exactly what she seemed to be doing. Hiding. And to make things even more puzzling, he had found a box cutter in her jacket pocket earlier when he had stripped off her jacket. He had wondered where she had gotten the damn thing, then had said a silent prayer of thanks because she hadn't pulled it on him with the intention to use it when she had been freaked.

"I found a box cutter in her jacket pocket earlier-"

"Where the hell could she have gotten something like that? We don't use box cutters here." Kankuro said out loud as he tried to think.

"She probably got it at the store."

"You mean she jacked it?" Kankuro asked with a look of shock on his face. Kakashi hesitated for a second then nodded his head.

"Yeah. Probably."

"But Uzu wouldn't do that! She's a good girl."

"She's a fucking saint compared to the lot of us. But like I said before, she was utterly terrified..."

"And fear does strange things to people-" Genma said softly.

"Yeah." Kankuro agreed as Kakashi turned his head to look at their sister again and brushed her long silvery blond hair back away from her face and said.

"Now we just have to figure out what it is baby girl is so afraid of..." Kakashi said as he ran his fingers along the little frown lines on her forehead. Kankuro shifted behind him and moved a little closer and asked.

"Do you want to cancel the party until she's feeling better?"

"No-" Kakashi said firmly. He didn't know about them but he knew that Uzu would need a good distraction once she woke up or she would just lock herself away in her room and worry needlessly. "The party is still on. We just need to keep our eyes on her just in case whatever or who ever scared her makes an appearance."

"Is there anything in particular that we should look out for?"

Kakashi thought for a second or so then perked up a little bit as an idea came to him. He hadn't told Genma and Kankuro about Uzu's before mentioned crush on some mystery boy. And since she hadn't given him the guys name yet, then _everyone _was suspect. "Actually Uzu did say something a tad suspicious earlier today..."

The two brothers perked up, the wheels in their minds turning like mad and Kakashi grinned _evilly_. "About what?" Both brothers asked in unison before turning their heads and glaring at each other for a second or so.

"She said that she met a guy that she really liked..."

"Say no more Kakashi. We'll find out who the son of a bitch is." Kankuro growled.

Genma cracked his knuckles ominously and smiled. "And we'll find out if he's the one who scared our dear baby sister while we're breaking off a few things.


	17. Chapter 17

Forty four reviews! Yay!

Some of you may not have caught on to why I hold my stories hostage form time to time. And that's cool. It doesn't really matter but I wonder how many of you have noticed that I have a pattern when writing a story.

For anyone who has been to my profile and checked out my stories. I want you to count, how many of them have over forty reviews. And how many of them have thirty or below and are still climbing.

I've noticed a pattern. And I like to think that many of the stories that I write are fairly decent quality.

But I know that I can do better.

And one day I'm going to write the most awesome story ever. And it will have over a thousand reviews.

It's nice to have a goal...

And to answer Skie89, they are and yet they aren't. They are naruto stories and if rewritten could be sold, published and so on.

okay dear.

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Uzu woke two hours later.

Just forty five minutes before the party was supposed to start. She moaned softly and stirred, and Kakashi's head snapped up from his little project as he turned his head to look at her and quickly cleared his desk off. Stuffing the papers that he had been writing on, and the box cutter that he had confiscated into his desk drawer then shut it and stood up and made his way over to his bed and sat down on the edge as Uzu's eyes fluttered open and she looked at him.

"Ka-shi?"

He smiled a little bit and reached out and put his palm against her cheek and tried not to show his puzzlement when she flinched away from his hand as she pushed herself upright and looked around. "Where?"

"Your at home. In my room. You had a little bit of a...panic attack-" He cringed a little, not sure what else to call the incident. "And sort of passed out. I brought you home and that is more or less, that." He said as she looked around, she had a dazed expression on her face. Like she was there and she was sort of aware, but not really.

"Oh... I'm sorry-" Uzu finally said as she reached up and pushed her hair back from her face and started muttering. "You must have been worried. I didn't mean- You worry-" She frowned and rubbed her forehead with her fingers as he sat there listening to her and studying her pale features.

She didn't look so good. In fact she looked like she was about to be sick.

Foreseeing trouble ahead he reached out and picked up the small waste basket he kept wedged between the bed and the small bed side table, for when he would wake up in the middle of the night because of the nightmares he had sometimes, and pressed it against her stomach. She frowned and looked down and he looked away, knowing what was going to happen next.

There was a small choking sound followed by the sound of liquid splattering the inside of the waste basket and Kakashi silently congratulated himself for being so insightful or he might have wound up needing to clean his bed sheets and floor. He sat there for several minutes as she emptied the contents of her stomach and finally after about fifteen minutes or so she seemed to have finished wretching and leaned over a little bit and put the waste basket on the bed side table as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Fell better now?"

She nodded as the haze that had settled over her mind lifted and the wheels started turning full speed again. "I'm fine now. Thanks Kashi." He stared at her for a second then nodded his head.

"Will you tell me what freaked you out so much?"

Uzu looked at him, and for a second couldn't recall what he was talking about. But everything came back to her a second later with such startling clarity. Kabuto. He was in town. He was still looking for her. If he found her...

She heard Kakashi's voice, calling out to her from a distance, but didn't really hear him until his hands made contact with her cheeks and she found herself staring up at his face, his eyes were narrowed and almost angry looking. "Look at me. See me. Hear my voice-"

"I see. I hear."

"Then why didn't you answer me?"

"I'm s-sorry. I didn't h-hear y-you-" She stuttered as she stared at him. He glared at her for a second and leaned in a fraction of an inch, eating up the small distance between them and breathed one angry word.

"Liar." He let her go and got off of the bed and walked across the room and slipped out the door slamming it behind him.

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Kakashi avoided her for the rest of the day because he was still in a foul mood. Genma had taken Gaara and Iruka over to a friends house to spend the week end. Leaving the older kids to their own vices.

The party started at seven thirty, once everything was set up. Kankuro and Genma had pulled out an old folding table and cleaned it off and set it up in the corner of the living room after moving some of the other furniture around, and had set it up as the snacks table. Kakashi was in charge of the music, and had picked some very tasteful stuff to listen too ranging from rock to alternative to rap.

He was standing up against the wall across the crowded room from Uzu, watching her talk a little bit with Neji and took a sip of the punch in his hand and made a small strangled sound. He had drank six cups of this punch so far and it never tasted any better. If anything it tasted worse.

Like rubbing alcohol and ashes.

"Hey Kashi! How are you? I haven't seen you in forever-" Genma cried just a second before he staggered into Kakashi and wrapped his arms around his older brother's neck. Kakashi jumped and grabbed the younger teen, sloshing his drink all over the front of his nice clean shirt in the process as he stared at his younger sibling who was more or less hanging around his neck like an over grown monkey.

"Gen! What the hell?"

Genma giggled and looked at Kakashi, his face flushed, his eyes glazed. _Oh dear god, that bastard Kankuro spiked the punch! _Kakashi sighed and made a mental note to kick Kankuro in the balls later on and tossed what was left of his drink over his shoulder and glanced across the room at Uzu, suddenly feeling very worried that Neji was trying to get her good and drunk. But she wasn't drinking the punch, she had been drinking nothing but soda out of the bottled sodas so far.

Thank god for small favors. The last thing he wanted to explain was why daddy's little girl had lost her innocence during a drunken roll in the sack. He sighed again as he felt his temples start to throb as his head started to ache. God he didn't want to deal with this right now. He was already tense and pissed, he didn't need his siblings getting shit faced and getting into mischief to add to his growing list of troubles.

"Hi Gen. Feeling good?"

"Goody, good good!" Genma chirped between giggles as he leaned into Kakashi a little more, and laying his head on his brother's shoulder. Kakashi patted the smaller teens back as two girls walked by. Genma's head snapped up and he followed the two talking girls with his eyes, his entire being focused on what could be a potential lay and Kakashi muttered a sullen oath as Genma lost the girls then started looking for a new target and made a happy sound and grabbed Kakashi's punch stained shirt and tugged on it insistently.

"Kashi! Kashi!"

"What Gen?" Kakashi asked as he reached up and carefully pried his younger brother's fingers from the fabric of his shirt before Genma could rip it off of him.

"There's an angel over there!"

Kakashi blinked and snorted in amusement. An angel. Man oh man he would _kill_ to see something that nice. Once Genma was sober, he'd have to ask him to share whatever he was turned around and looked at him and gave him a wide mischievous grin and said in a loud parody of a whispered tone. "She's really pretty. And she has such nice boobs!" Genma broke off as he extended his arms, hands out and wiggled his fingers like he couldn't wait to touch them or something and started giggling again and Kakashi snickered and decided to see if he could see this 'angel' Genma was so fixated on and leaned down a little bit and looked inn the same direction Genma was looking and froze when all he could see was Uzu.

After he had left her alone she had cleaned up after herself and went and taken a shower and changed into the white off the shoulder button up cotton mid riff shirt and a pair of faded to white skinny jeans, her long hair had been pulled back into a loose braid and she was wearing small three inch white heels.

She looked beautiful, he wasn't denying that.

But he was still upset with her and Genma's antics were less than gentlemanly. He straitened his spine as disappointment warred with his earlier anger and without warning he punched Genma across the face. Gen barely had time to yelp before his legs buckled and he fell to the floor with a dull thud. Kakashi rubbed his fist and stepped over him and started to walk away when someone stepped into his path, stopping him.

He groaned and hung his head in defeat as his current fuck buddy stepped into view with a dark look on her face. "Hey Kashi-"

"My name is Kakashi, Sakura. Not Kashi, or Shi, or Baby. Kakashi. The only people who have the right to call me anything but my name are my family."

"Ask me if I care. I want to know why Kankuro tried to stop me from coming in earlier."

"Because I didn't want you here." Kakashi said coldly as he brushed past her. She grabbed his arm and dug in her sharp finger nails and he turned his head a little bit to glare at her over his shoulder.

"And why wouldn't you want me here?" She asked in a dangerously low voice.

"Because I don't like you."

"So I'm good enough to fuck but not to invite into your home?"

"First of all. Your not that great at sex and second of all, this is my family's home. And I don't like trash cluttering up the place." Kakashi said as he pulled his arm free of her grasp and started to move again when he felt something sharp and lethal press against his back, just above the waist of his pants as Sakura laughed. The throaty sound causing the pit to drop out of his stomach.

"Alright, if that's how you want to play. Then here is what will happen. You know Genma's little angel. Of course you do. You've been staring at the little bitch for the past two hours. Well, Kashi baby, we're going to go upstairs and have a little fun. And you're going to act happy about it because if you don't... I'll go over there and cut the little skank's tits off then I'll start working on her face and eyes. Sounds fun right?"

Kakashi started to turn his head to look at his sister, his heart pounding in his chest. Sakura slapped him, her finger nails raking the side of his face leaving little bloody welts on his skin and she hissed. "You will not look at her. You will look at me." He looked at her, his mis matched eyes glaring at her and she smiled.

"Good boy. Now kiss me."

He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek and hissed. "If you go near that girl, you'll be dead before you hit the floor."


	18. Chapter 18

Kakashi led Sakura up the stairs, far away from his sister and tried to block out the nearly over whelming surge of panic that coursed through him. He managed to look around the room once, trying to locate Uzu, to make sure that she was okay somewhere, but couldn't see her and figured that she was somewhere with Kankuro or talking to Hinata. Feeling a little more at ease with the thought, his mind grasped at it desperately as Sakura pushed open one door and they both froze when they saw two people, naked and straining against each other.

Sakura rolled her eyes and quickly pulled the door closed. Muttering something along the lines of 'Goddamn doors.' And their need to be locked and Kakashi saw that Uzu's bedroom door was the only one still open and grasped Sakura's wrist and pulled her along behind him to his sister's room and pushed her inside and closed the door.

"My, my, you are eager aren't you." Sakura said suspiciously as he locked the door and crossed the floor to stand in front of her and lifted his hands to frame her face. He had no problem with using his body like this. It was still meaningless.

And he could deal with Sakura easily once he had the knife away from her.

He took a deep breath and tipped her head back, seeing his own reflection in the emerald green orbs. He leaned his head down a little bit and covered her mouth with his hand and kissed the back of it.

Sakura didn't seem to mind. She knew that he didn't kiss on the lips...ever. Just like he never let anyone touch him below the belt, or top him. He freaked out and got violent if someone tried to take his control from him and Sakura was far from a fool. Or suicidal.

He slipped his hand through the hair at the nape of her neck and closed his hand around the strands tightly as he backed them over to the bed, his mis matched eyes glittering with rage. "I hate you." He said fiercely as he took his hand away from her mouth and grabbed the hem of her skirt and jerked it up around her hips as he toppled them onto the bed. She made a small impatient sound and squirmed under him as he ran his free hand along her body.

Not really touching her because he wanted to, it was merely a force of habit. He didn't care about curves, or softness, or anything in particular. Those things were better suited for people who enjoyed sex. Not for people who relived some past _horror_ day by day, breath by breath.

He wasn't seeing Sakura. The girl who had threatened his sister. He was only seeing one thing. The man and the little girl from his last foster home.

The ones who had stripped him of his innocence and a small piece of his soul. He let go of Sakura's hair and leveled himself up on his elbow over her and reached down and- blocked out _everything_ else but the sick feeling churning in his gut.

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Uzu stood in her bathroom wiping her face with the wet rag that she had made for herself after she had gotten sick again and looked at herself in the mirror. She still looked too pale. Several of the people down stairs had commented on how pale she had looked before she had come up stairs to her room to use the bathroom.

She might have used one of the other bathrooms, but knew that there were people behind those closed doors. Getting naked and crazy and it was enough to make her want to push some of her furniture in front of her door to keep them out. She put the rag down and started for the door when she heard a muffled scream from the bedroom and stopped just shy of the slightly cracked door and blinked.

_Please tell me someone isn't getting busy on my bed..._She thought nervously as she moved a little closer and peeked through the crack and quickly slapped her hands over her mouth to muffle any sound she might have made as she stared at the sight of her brother, Kakashi, leaning over some girl with pink hair driving himself into her violently as he bit down on her shoulder until it bled.

The girl whimpered and cried out with each movement of his hips and finally after a second or so he stiffened, his body tense as he lifted his head and got a strange look on his face before rolling off of the gril and peeling something off of his-

OH! Uzu's face burned a deep shade of pink. Oh dear god, Kakashi had- On her- Why the hell-

She couldn't think strait as she backed away from the door suddenly wishing that there was a window or something that she could use to climb out of and escape this bathroom that suddenly felt like it was much too small and staggered back to the far wall as Kakashi exchanged words with the pink haired girl before she stormed out.

"Well, that's one problem down." He said to himself as he looked back at the bed and made a small frustrated sound. He hadn't wanted to do this in here. Not where Uzu curled up and slept so sweetly at night. He ran his fingers through his hair and grabbed the pillows and threw them into the little reading chair a few feet away and started to strip the bed, his entire focus on cleaning up all of the sickening traces of what he had done with Sakura.

He didn't want Uzu anywhere near that girl. Or any part of her. He would hand scrub the sheets to her bed later so that he would be sure that they were clean and threw them down on the floor and grabbed the top mattress and jerked it off of her bed the did the same with the second mattress before putting them back, the first mattress on the bottom and the second on top.

Once that was done he bent down and gathered up Uzu's aqua and lavender bed sheets and the blanket that went with them and put them over by the door then straitened his spine and walked over to the bathroom to get new sheets and pushed the door open and froze when he came face to face with his newest personal demon.

"Uzu?"

What was she doing up here? In the bathroom? Had she seen? His mind reeled as her face turned a bright red and something in his mind clicked and he stepped a little further into the room and closed the door behind him and studied her.

She _had _seen.

The thought of her watching him the same way that he had watched as a child was eerie and caused the more twisted side of his personality to come out to play. He smiled at her, though the expression held no warmth and reached out his hand. "Come here baby girl."


	19. Chapter 19

_The thought of her watching him the same way that he had watched as a child was eerie and caused the more twisted side of his personality to come out to play. He smiled at her, though the expression held no warmth and reached out his hand. "Come here baby girl."_

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He didn't know what was wrong with him. He looked calm. His breathing and everything else appeared to be normal, but inside he was abuzz. His heart pushing the blood through his body, up into his ears so that all he could hear was a faint rushing sound, his vision of the world narrowed and all he could see in that moment was her.

Uzu. The angel. _The saint_. The good girl that he tried so hard to protect.

Something in his mind, some_ part _of him just _snapped_. And suddenly he couldn't see Uzu. His sister.

He saw Uzu, a young woman with no real _blood_ ties to him.

"Come here baby girl." He said the words in a deceptively soft and calm voice. Uzu had a deer caught in the headlights look on her pretty face as she flattened her back against the wall and slowly, shook her head no. Her self preservation instinct was suddenly screaming at her.

_Run! Get away! Somethings wrong!_

But she had no where to go. No way to escape without trying to go around him. His lips curved up in a fake smile as he stared at her through blank eyes. He held his hand out to her in a gesture similar to how he always reached for her and wiggled his fingers at her to try and lure her to him. It didn't work and for some odd reason the fact that she wasn't listening to him sparked the interest of his predatory instinct.

Like a shark scenting fresh blood.

He tried again. "I said, come here. Baby. Girl." He bit the words out. Again she shook her head no, and it was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she was a masochist, because she was only making things worse for herself. He knew this because he could feel his anger rising again. Much _hotter_, and _sharper _than it had been when Sakura had pulled that little toy she called a knife on him.

He took two small, dangerous steps forward and saw her trying to become one with the wall. It was funny. Sort of but not really. However thanks to how he was feeling right now, he found the fact that she was trying to meld her body to the wall, pretty fucking funny. He chuckled, the sound different from his normally amused chuckle. This sound was darker, and couldn't really be classified as anything but evil.

"Uzu if you make me cross the rest of the distance to you, you aren't going to like what I _might_ do to you." He said the words warningly, and it was true. She probably wouldn't like what he had planned for her because he was having trouble narrowing down what exactly he was going to do. There was just so many ways to punish her without actually hurting her and he was running through them all and setting aside the ideas that he liked the most.

So far he had making her his new toy-something that might actually alienate them from the rest of the family.

Making her his slave-the idea of having her at his every beck and call was sort of appealing, but he quickly shoved that thought aside when he found it too disturbing.

He could secretly take her virginity.

Again, the idea had some appeal, but once he got past his anger and rage, the logical side of him knew that doing that would be a very bad thing. She would be _ruined_ in more than one way if he did that to her and as pissed as he was, he knew in his heart that he couldn't do it. He was cruel, yes. But he wasn't that cruel.

Which left several other ideas that he A) didn't really understand very much. And B) found very, very, _very_ appealing to him.

Since he had set limits and refused to hurt her physically like he had Sakura (the very notion of leaving bloody marks on Uzu was abhorrent to him on _so_ many levels) then he would just have to punish her another way. So far the only idea that he truly liked, was making her his girlfriend.

Which in itself was a form of punishment because of his bad temper and quick mood swings. But the reason that he liked the idea so damn much, and this was just rough guess. Was that she would be _exclusively_ his.

He could have her at his total beck and call, could touch her whenever he wanted, could drag her off behind the bleachers somewhere whenever he wanted, and no one would stop him. And if she tired to leave him before he said she could, he'd ruin her. There were ways to do it without harming her.

She lunged and grabbed his hand, her face pink, and he smiled then. A genuine smile to show his approval as he pulled her closer to him and wrapped one arm around her waist and lace his fingers together with hers. "Did you like what you saw?" He asked curiously. He doubted that she had or she's be able to look him in the eyes right now. But he wanted to know, because the thought of looking like anything similar to what he knew he was deep inside, in her eyes; was painful to him.

She didn't respond and he let go of her hand and used his finger tips to tip her head back and noticed that she had closed her eyes so that she couldn't see his expression. Is he really look that frightening to her? He wondered as he brushed his knuckles along the curve of her cheek.

Odd.

He felt much calmer now that he had her in his grasp. He leaned his head down and blew his breath across her face and nearly laughed when her eyes snapped open and she squeaked, her face turning a deeper shade of pink. "Answer me. Did you like what you saw?" He asked again and steeled himself for her reply because he just knew that it would be something very unflattering to him.

She shook her head no and he sighed.

Of course not. Sex for him was nothing more than a deeply programed function. He wasn't gentle. He didn't touch to arouse his partner. He didn't kiss or make sweet promises or cuddle. These things were foreign to him. He didn't _know _how to do them.

All he knew, was the violence of the act. The pain inflicted, and the wounds that scarred. The cries. The bruises. And sometimes even the blood that went with it.

_He hated it._

But he didn't know anything else. He doubted that he'd be able to function with anything else. But that didn't stop him from wondering what it would feel like if he was gentle, and he cuddled and kissed and did things the way he knew in his heart, was the right way.

Which was why having Uzu in his grasp right now was so important. He had never cared for any female that he had used. But he _cared_ for her.

Hell, he knew that he was even border line obsessed with her. He had figured that much out earlier today when he had punched a hole through her door in an effort to learn the name of the person who had snagged her interest.

Under normal circumstances doing something similar would just be used as a warning to his brothers, but his reaction to thinking that someone else might take her away from him had been beyond violent. His reaction had been murderous.

And once the he had put his hand through her door, he had calmed enough to realise that there was something going on with him that he didn't understand. Something that rattled him and caused his territorial instincts to flare to life.

He had been thankful that she had put the door between them.

But there were no doors between them here, and for once he wanted to know if he could be gentle with a girl. He wanted to kiss and hold hands and act like a love sick puppy. But he felt he couldn't do any of these things without her. Which was why he broke two of his self imposed rules right then.

1) Never take a girl that you like as a girlfriend.

And 2) Never kiss on the mouth.

He leaned down a little more and pressed his lips against hers, and felt her whole body jerk in his grasp. Part of him wondered if she was trying to escape him, and another part of him didn't care. She wasn't going anywhere unless he _let_ her go, and right now he really wasn't feeling _that_ particular plan. He shifted his hold on her and pulled her closer and tangled his finger in her hair and pressed his mouth against hers again.

She put her hands against his chest and tried to push him away, and he made a frustrated sound and untangled his fingers from her hair so that he could capture both of her hands in his and pulled them to the side a little bit and applied a little more pressure to her lips. She made a funny sound as he licked along her bottom lip then pulled back a little and waited for her to try and tell him to stop.

She parted her lips a fraction of an inch and he grinned at her a second before sealing his mouth over hers again and slipping his tongue inside of her mouth. She shuddered and made a strained sound in the back of her throat and tried to pull her hands free, but he wasn't letting her go that easy. She had seen the worst part of him, of his nature. And though she was scared, he wouldn't let her stay that way for long.

His protective instincts towards her simply wouldn't let him.

The kiss lasted no longer than a minute, and he already knew that he was in trouble. He could feel it in the way his body was reacting to her sweetness. The way his skin felt too tight, his heart was beating too fast, and in the way that he was breathing.

For the first time in his life, he felt excited.

And suddenly a new world of possibilities opened up to him. And it was all because of _her_...

He took a deep shuddering breath and looked at her. Her face wasn't so pale now, she was blushing a cute shade of soft pink, her lips were swollen and he chuckled, all of the darker emotions from before vanishing completely. Almost as if they had never been and he touched his forehead to hers and whispered. "Your mine now." There was a wealth of emotion in his words and he could see that she understood his meaning in the way her eyes widened a little more.

But just to be sure that she understood his meaning, he wanted to give her something.


	20. Chapter 20

Kakashi dragged her out of her room by the hand and pulled her down the hall to his room and opened the door. Uzu closed her eyes expecting a couple of people to be in the room as he pulled her in and closed the door behind him and let go of her hand and moved over to his desk. "There isn't anyone in here Uzu. So you don't have to close your eyes."

She cracked one eye open and looked around the room for a second then sighed in relief, as he unlocked the bottom drawer in his desk and pulled it open. "What are you doing?" Uzu asked curiously from across the room. He looked at her over his shoulder and smiled as he found the colorful little mother of pearl inlay box that had belonged to his mother.

It was among one of the few possessions that he had managed to keep to remember his real parents by after they had died. And inside of it were his some of his mother's jewelry, and a few things of his fathers along with five little pictures of him with his parents as a baby. He set the little box on his desk and opened it and quickly sorted through it to find what he was looking for.

He figured that these particular treasures would do nicely since they were a matching pair. He pulled out the one that had belonged to his father and studied it for a second, looking at the little wolve's on either side of the thick white gold band, and ran his thumb across the glittering oval sapphire and smiled as he recalled the story that his father had told him about these rings.

They had been his parents favorite treasure. Because it had marked the beginning of their relationship with one another. His father had once told him that these bands were lucky, and that anyone that wore them was destined to be bound to one another by a love deeper than the ocean, and more enduring than time.

He hoped that it was true as he slipped his father's ring onto his ring finger.

And then dug out his mother's which matched his father's in every way but one, the oval stone in the white gold setting was a lovely pink tourmaline. He pulled it out of the box and wiped away some of the dust that had settled on the glittering gem and gently closed the box and put it back into the desk drawer and closed and relocked it, then stood up and walked over to Uzu who had been leaning against the door trying to look calmer than she probably felt after what had happened a little while ago.

Her nerves were still just a bit rattled. He could tell by the way her attention shifted form nothing to him as soon as he stood up and started moving. He stopped right in front of her and grasped her left hand and slipped his mother's ring onto her finger, feeling just a little surprised that she stood there and let him do what he wanted. She looked at the ring then back at him, her expression confused.

"These rings belonged to my parents..." He said softly as he lifted her hand a little bit and laced their fingers together, flesh against flesh, cold metal against metal. "I'm giving you my mom's ring. Do you understand why?"

She bit her lower lip and slowly shook her head no. And he let go of her hand so that he could frame her face in his hands and breathed, "I'm giving you my mother's ring, because I want you to be _my_ girl. My baby girl. My treasure..." _My one great love._ As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it aside.

He didn't know the first thing about love. He grew up knowing so very little of it.

But that didn't mean that he couldn't learn if he had the right person to help teach him. And he just knew that Uzu could show him everything that he wanted to learn so desperately. He knew that she wouldn't be violent with him, or threaten him like Sakura. Knew that she wouldn't abuse him or demand things that made him feel sick inside.

She wouldn't ask for anything more than he was willing to give.

She would be patient and understanding, and tell him when he was crossing the line so that he could back the fuck off. He needed her. He knew this. He just didn't realise how much he needed her right then.

"Do you understand?" He asked after a second or so. His mis matched eyes studying her, silently pleading with her to say yes. He needed to hear her say the word before he could do anything more. He felt like he couldn't go on _living_ unless she gave him the word.

Uzu didn't know what to think of him. He had been acting funny since earlier today when she had played that trick on him. And she didn't know what he wanted, not really. One minute he looked like he was going to strangle her to death and the next he was kissing her breathless.

But she did know one thing. He had such a desperate look on his face. It was simply something that he couldn't seem to hide from her, even if he was trying to hide it from himself and she knew that she had suddenly become his life line.

Whatever it was that had him acting so strange wouldn't stop unless she was with him. That was why he had put his mother's ring on her finger. It was a silent claim on her, a warning to others that she already belonged to someone.

She didn't understand his reasoning behind the ring, but she knew that she had to say yes. He wasn't likely to give up until she did. For some unknown reason this was important to him. Probably more important than the very air that he breathed.

He had her cornered, and right where he wanted her and there was nothing that she could do about it but submit and hope that he didn't do anything that could damage her heart or mind any further than it already was.

She nodded her head. Feeling as if some part of herself had just been pulled form her body and placed in his hands. "Okay Kashi. I get it."

And she did. She understood that she was giving herself to him. That he would now hold sway over her heart and mind and body, and she just prayed to god that he didn't _hurt_ her.

He gave her a dazzling smile and pressed his mouth against hers in a slow, soft caress that seemed to suck the air right out of her lungs and she heard him say something, very softly. Almost too softly to hear. But it sounded suspiciously like, "Thank you."


	21. authors notes

Okay kittens I've gotten some questions and complaints about Uzu's passive personality that I want to address.

First of all, I know that she seems sort of weak and timid, but anyone really good at reading between the lines would have seen and noticed in chapter 15, that Uzu isn't as passive or defenseless as she seems.

She had a plan for dealing with Kabuto, and she had another plan for hiding herself in plain sight.

You all have to remember that she had been in witness protection for over ten years. Uzu was taught how to hide herself and fight, she just picks her fights carefully. She has more or less trained herself to stay as calm and collected as any human under a great deal of stress can be.

She managed to appear calm and to hide herself from someone who was going to kill her, and fell apart once he was gone. If she could have, she would have walked right up to Kabuto and killed him without a second thought.

Her passiveness is a learned condition that helps her blend in and seem weaker than she is. If she had really felt threatened by Kakashi or anyone else in any of the earlier chapters, she would have dropped them. Easily.

But as it is, she hasn't been pushed enough.

I hope that answers some of your questions. Now on to another.

Skie89- I think I did pretty well on the last two chapters. And Kakashi isn't in love with Uzu. _Not yet. _He knows that he's behaving stranger than usual and he knows that she's the reason for it, but he doesn't _understand_ whats going on.

He wants to fall in love.

I mean could you imagine being seventeen and feeling like an alien just going through the motions of being human? He wants to be normal, and knows that how he has dealt with certain things up to this point in an unhealthy self destructive manner. But he's hoping that by keeping Uzu close to him she could somehow help him.

She has quite litterally become his life line.

As for Sakura, she threatened him out of jealousy and couldn't see or think beyond her own wants and needs. Any more silly questions?


	22. Chapter 22

_UGH!_ Some people are never happy.

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Minato stood over the body of the Snake. The smell of gun smoke wafting up to tease his nose, he lifted a gloved hand and covered his mouth and nose, trying to hold back the sneeze he felt coming on and resisted the urge to smirk.

He'd done it! After a whole month of calling in old debts and asking questions he had finally found the Snakes location and killed him, believing that if he did, his little girl would finally be safe. Because once news got out that the Snake was dead, every hit ever placed on his little girl should fall through.

She was finally free to live her life, without fear. He wondered if Kushina would be pissed at him for resorting to his old ways to deal with the threat to their daughter, but shrugged it off figuring that after what Uzu and she had been through, that it wouldn't have really mattered any.

Kushina had always been amused by the fact that he killed people for a living.

He stood there for another second or so and shook his head then unscrewed the silencer off of the gun in his hand and quickly pocketed the pieces and grabbed the dead man's ankles and started to drag him further into the house. Making his way down the hall to the basement where the furnace was...

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Kakashi and Uzu didn't go back to the party. Uzu had decided to go to bed early and Kakashi hadn't gone back because he had been too busy standing guard over her room for a majority of the night.

By the time the party ended, and everyone was gone, Kakashi was literally hyped. He just couldn't shake the excited feeling he had had once Uzu had said that she would be his girlfriend.

He waited until he saw Kankuro half carry, half drag Genma into his room before seeking out his own and sat inside his room, at his desk planning out everything for the next few weeks. He didn't know much of anything about girls, but he had seen the way guys acted in school and in movies, so those things were really all he had to go on until he had a good feel for the sort of things that Uzu would like.

Tomorrow morning he'd wake her up bright and early and take her out for a day long date. He figured that maybe if he tried a few ideas, he could see what happened. He would take her shopping if she wanted to go. And take her to see a movie. Buy her dinner, and then drive them down to the peir and walk with her a little while and watch the clouds, he even planned to take a blanket with them so that he could spread it out on the ground.

He had managed to plan about two weeks worth of dates before he looked at his calender and frowned. He hadn't realised that school would be starting up soon. But it would in another three weeks. Meaning that they had until Halloween for him to have her all to himself.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall and made a funny little sound. It was well past four in the morning and he was finally getting tired. The day's events must have tired him out more than he realised. He pushed away from his desk and stumbled over to his bed and flopped down on it on his stomach and closed his eyes.


	23. Chapter 23

Okay kittens, here is the next chapter of Precious.

I won't lie to you this chapter isn't going to be pleasant. But it will give you a better idea of just what Kakashi went through as a kid before he was adopted by Minato.

Again, it won't be pretty.

Just remember that you were warned. And if you feel that you can't read this chapter then I encourage you to skip it.

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_His head snapped up and he stared wide eyed at the naked and aroused middle aged man standing in the door way with a dark look on his face. He couldn't move. He was trying too, but his body suddenly felt so heavy and weak that it simply wouldn't listen to his brain. _

_The man stared at him for a second before smiling. His lips curving up in a sick parody of a normal smile. "Kashi-chan, you were watching." Kakashi wanted to shake his head no, to deny everything but couldn't, the evidence of what he had seen was all over his pants legs and shoes. _

_The aweful smell making his stomach roll as if he were going to puke again. _

_Kakashi made a distressed hiccuping sound and tried to stand up, he wanted very much to run away and hide somewhere in the house, but couldn't seem to get his legs to work no matter what he tried. "Did you like what you saw Kashi-chan?" The man asked as he started to reach for him and all at once Kakashi's mind started working again and he managed to throw himself back away from the guy's hand, his small body smacking into the wall behind him and he snarled. _

_"Touch me and I'll tell!" And he would. He'd tell anyone and everyone who would listen, just what this man and his foster father had been doing to his foster sister, Rin. The man stopped for a second and shrugged his shoulders and made like he was going back into the bedroom, and for a second. Some part of his mind cheered. _

_Yay! We're home free!_

_He took a quick glance towards his bedroom door, just down the hall and knew that if he could get to it and lock the door that he'd be fine. He glanced back at the door, noted that it was closing and decided to try and make a run for it. He took two steps forward when the bedroom door was flung open and the man grabbed him by the back of the shirt, lifting him up off of the floor and hauling him into the bed room where he had seen Rin and the guy messing together. _

_He flailed his little arms, he yelled, he kicked, he scratched and bit at the man's hands and arms but it didn't do anything. He was thrown down on the bed and was only a little bit aware of the fist that was swung his way. _

_The man's fist connected with his forehead and he felt the skin break under the force of the blow as his eyes rolled back in his head and everything started fading in and out. He lay on the bed, shaking and trying to breath, his head throbbing and aching so badly that he felt he was going to be sick again. He blinked back tears and tried to sit up but couldn't. He just didn't seem to know how too at that second. _

_It was like his knowledge and basic motor functions had been erased by that blow to his head. He was dizzy, moving hurt. He felt a pair of big hands grasp one of his ankles and jerk off his shoe, then felt it drop like a piece of lead as his other ankle was grabbed and his other shoe was jerked off then dropped and he managed to lift his head a little bit. A fraction of an inch as he felt those same hands running along his legs in a slow, lingering caress that made his skin crawl as those same hands rubbed up against his crotch. _

_He sobbed and tried to sit up again, tried to push those hands away from him when he felt the hands messing with the front of his pants an instant before he became aware that he was being stripped. He felt his hips come up off fo the mattress and cool air against his skin and he let out the loudest most terrified scream as he came up swinging, not really caring that he was still dizzy, that his head was hurting. _

_He had nothing on his mind anymore but escape. _

_He clipped the man with his fist and was back handed so hard that his head snapped to the side on his shoulders, the jarring action hurting his neck and back as he toppled over and tried to push himself upright again but couldn't when he felt something heavy straddle his stomach, not quiet pressing down on him, just holding him in place and he looked up at the furious look on the man's face as he growled, "If you like using your mouth so much then do it right-" _

_Kakashi started to open his mouth to ask him what he meant when something long and thick and hard was shoved into his mouth, all the way back into his throat, and he couldn't breath. He thrashed, around and tried to pull back, but the man had a good grip on him, his fingers grasping Kakashi's hair on either side of his head and he was forcing his head to move in a strange rocking motion. _

_Kakashi started to black out as tears slipped down his face, he felt something spatter against the back of his throat and started coughing as the thing was taken out of his mouth, still dripping a strange creamy white liquid that stained his lower lip, his chin, and ran down his neck. He lay there coughing and shaking, his body spasming like crazy as the man got off of him and grasped his hands and pulled them above his head. _

_"Rin come here." _

_Kakashi blinked his eyes several times and felt something small and light move towards his feet and jerked his head up to look at Rin. _

_God in heaven, he had forgottent hat she was even in the room. Had she been there the whole time? Watching what this man did to him? Kakashi stared at her for a second as she sat down on his legs, just below his knees and looked at the man. _

_Her normally warm and innocent eyes were blank, and lifeless. As if she were dead or something and that's when Kakashi realised that she was. She was as dead as a living person could be. _

_"Rin. Show Kashi-chan how to play your favorite game." The man said as Rin looked at Kakashi and smiled and pulled his underwear down just above his knees and touched him. Kakashi started crying again. His mind reeling in shock and horror as she opened her mouth and leaned over him and took his private place into her mouth. _

_He screamed and jerked, trying to free his hands of the painful grip on them as Rin worked on him. His body trapped, his mind numb he stopped struggling after a while and just lay there crying and whimpering as she stopped sucking him and moved up to straddle his hips and sat down on him hard._

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Kakashi woke up in his bed with a strangled cry as he clawed at his throat with his finger nails until it was raw and bloody, he jerked himself upright and sat there in the soft first rays of light from the sun and panted as he grabbed the covers and threw them off and quickly scrambled out of his bed and across the room so fast that he almost tripped over his own feet.

It had been over at least three moths since he had last had that nightmare and he couldn't stop himself from collapsing to the floor on his knees and crying. It just hurt so much.


	24. Chapter 24

Kakashi wasn't sure how long he sat there in the floor crying before he managed to pull himself together and got up off of the floor and went to take a shower so that he could calm himself completely and get ready for his first date with Uzu. Oddly enough the sense of excitement he had felt before was still there as he showered and shaved and put on some ca lone, and walked out of his bathroom with his towel wrapped around his hips as he ran his fingers through his shaggy silver hair and made his way over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of royal blue cotton boxers and some black socks and tossed them onto his bed.

Then grabbed his hair brush and started to brush his hair as he walked over to his closet and pulled open the door and looked inside. He spotted two outfits that could be considered 'date' material. One was a traditional sort of outfit for a casual outing. It was a black button up long sleeved shirt, with a tie (well several ties actually. He had at least seven that he had never worn before) and some black suit pants.

He pulled it out and then quickly went through his silk ties before settling on one the same color as his boxers. Once that was done he moved back to the closet and pulled out the second outfit that was consisted of a skin tight sleeveless black shirt over a long sleeved red mesh shirt with a pair of black leather pants that he had bought on a whim because the material had felt so soft against his skin that it had reminded him of butter.

He would have to wear his black leather jacket with it along with a pair of black and silver buckle, goth style boots that he had bought at the local Hot Topic. He could also wear a black leather bracelet or two.

He made a humming sound as he set the outfit on his bed and tried to sort things out in his mind. Traditional suit would be the best way to go since it said, I'm a nice guy and won't do _anything _you don't want me too. While the second outfit practically screamed; I may or may not be a nice guy. And will do totally_ inappropriate_ things to you as soon as your back is turned.

He sort of wanted to make a good impression on Uzu since it was their first date, yet at the same time dressing up nicely only suited him when he was a attending a funeral. It just didn't go with his personality.

In the end-after about an hour of silently debating with himself, he finally chose the second outfit and decided to reserve the first one for a later, much more important date and got dressed and grabbed his leather jacket and bracelets and found his favorite necklace (a delicate looking sterling silver cross on a thin chain, and was mildly surprised that he managed to find the little cross earrings to match it and decided to re pierce his ears so that he would match completely) and pulled on his jacket and grabbed his boots and glanced at the clock.

It was close to eight now, meaning that he had spent at least two hours crying over his hellish childhood, and another hour and forty five minutes just to shower and get dressed. Meaning that Uzu would be waking up in another fifty seven minutes at her usual time.

He grabbed his wallet and walked over to his closet again and reached up for the metal box sitting on the small shelf above his clothes and pulled the box down and quickly opened it and checked the money that he had hidden inside of the box. He still had at least ten thousand dollars in his little box, all of it earned on paper routs and odd jobs and the three part full time jobs that he had worked for several months two years ago.

He hadn't touched any of it in a while, which was probably why there was so much of it. But he didn't mind getting some of it for this endeavor since it was important to him.

He pulled out two thousand (he knew that he wouldn't spend that much on this date, a majority of it would actually go into his Halloween stuff and his back to school supplies) which left about six hundred dollars for his personal disposal. Enough to buy flowers, go to the movies, buy dinner and maybe do some light shopping.

He looked at the clock again and wondered if he should go wake Uzu up now or if he should go get some roses or something first and shook his head no. If he wanted to give her something nice like flowers then he would let her pick them out for herself so that she wouldn't be disappointed and he could learn what she liked.

He walked over to his bedroom door and silently opened it and slipped out and walked down the hall to Uzu's room and quietly slipped inside to wake her up and stopped when he noticed that she wasn't in bed like he had thought she was.

He had forgotten to put some clean sheets on her bed after his little 'tussle' with that bitch Sakura. Odd that he didn't recall forgetting anything so putting clean sheets on her bed must have been pushed from his mind by his excitement among other things.

Still that didn't explain why Uzu wasn't in bed.

He looked around the room for a second before making his way over to the window and checking it to make sure that no one had tampered with it and kidnapped her. He doubted that that was what had happened, but stranger shit did happen and he didn't want to have to wake up his brothers to explain why their dad was going to skin them _all_ alive.

After making sure that the window hadn't been touched he looked around the room again and then made his way over to the bed and dropped down to his knees and on impulse peeked under it to see if she was hiding. The fact that she might be hiding from him for any reason was galling to say the least but he knew that he could get a little freaky sometimes so it wasn't all together impossible that she could have gotten spooked and hidden somewhere.

Though he didn't really know why she would choose now of all times to make herself scarce.

She wasn't under the bed. He straitened his spine and glanced towards the bathroom. The door was wide open so she couldn't be in there. There would be no point in her hiding in there since he could see pretty much everything even in the early morning light that was filtering through her window. So that only left-

He got up and walked over to her closet and glanced down and shook his head in disbelief. How the hell had he managed to miss the copper and red colored coverlet sticking out from under the closet door?He wondered curiously as he opened the closet and peeked inside. Sure enough, there she was. Laying in a small space that she had cleared out by pushing her stuff to the far corner, laying on the floor on her side facing away from him, wrapped in the coverlet sound asleep.

He stared at her for a second and scratched his cheek. _Uh-huh... _

Well this was weird. So weird that he didn't know what to do about it. He made a soft huffing sound and dropped down to the floor and crossed his legs, indian style and just stared at her while he tried to figure out what to do about her sleeping in the floor of her closet.


	25. Chapter 25

Kakashi's first date with Uzu wasn't going the way he had planned.

He could tell by the fact that he was sitting on the floor just outside of Uzu's closet, watching her sleep. He reached out and after a second or so of hesitation gently ran his knuckles along the curve of her flushed cheek. She looked so cute when she slept. Not that she wasn't cute when she was awake; she was. It was just...she looked so much softer and more vulnerable like this.

It was adorable really.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it away and scowled. Cute or not, she shouldn't be sleeping on the floor inside of her closet. It was dirty and cramped and she was going to catch a cold. Muttering something under his breath about silly girls and their insane need to hide in bizarre places, and leaned over her and slipped an arm under the coverlet that she had wrapped herself in and gently lifted her up and into his lap and settled her body against his and looked down at her face and snorted in amusement.

God she was a deep sleeper. Most women would have woken up and started screaming as soon as they felt themselves being touched, but not Uzu. No. His sweet girl was a sound sleeper and didn't seem to have the common sense that god gave a damn flea.

What other reason could explain why she had fallen asleep in the floor of her closet? No common sense. But that was just one of the things that he found endearing about her.

"You're going to cause me so much trouble. Aren't you baby girl?" He waited for a second or so as if expecting her to suddenly wake up and answer him. But she didn't. She just moaned and frowned in her sleep and then buried her face against the hollow of his shoulder. His arms tightened around her a little bit as he felt her warm moist breath against his skin causing the spot to tingle strangely. He made a humming sound and ran his free hand through her soft silky hair.

Brushing it back from her face as she twitched in her sleep and frowned again. His lips curved up in amusement as she stirred slightly, and leaned his head down to touch his lips to hers. She made a little mewling sound against his lips as he licked along her bottom lip a second before her lips parted under his. He slipped his tongue inside of her mouth and kissed her, reminding himself over and over again that he needed to be gentle with her since she wasn't one of his toys, and was just a little surprised when he felt her tongue tentatively slide along his own before retreating.

He lifted his mouth from hers and muttered something inaudible against her lips as he wiped his thumb along her swollen bottom lip as her eyes fluttered open. "Kashi?"

"Hey baby girl. Did you sleep okay?" Was all Kakashi could think to ask her at the moment. She made a 'hn' sound and pushed the coverlet back, so that she could free one of her arms and reached up and rubbed her eyes in an effort to wake herself up before she bothered to answer him.

"Not really. The floor is really hard." And the small space that she had been using to sleep in, was really cramped.

He chuckled and kissed her cheek, then her forehead before telling her that she was a little bit of a ditz for sleeping in the closet in the floor anyways. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she hadn't slept there because she wanted too, but rather because she had thought that she heard a gun shot (it was a car back firing) sometime during the night and had hidden out of habit, but stopped herself before she ended up saying anything truly _informative_ about her past and how she had been raised and frowned at him.

"What are you doing in my room?" She asked curiously as she looked around, just to be sure that it really was her room. A girl could never be too careful after all. He grinned at her and stood up, taking her with him. The sudden action startling her just a little bit as she reached out and grabbed his shirt with one hand and looked around the room wide eyed as he walked over to her bed and set her down on it and stepped back and pointed at her.

"I came to wake you up for our first date. Now I'm giving you twenty minutes to do what you have to do and get dressed before I come back in here and drag you out as you are."

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True to his word Kakashi was back upstairs and in her room twenty minutes after leaving her to get dressed.

She was standing next to her bed, her hair damp from her shower, with her shirt in her hands when her bedroom door opened and she spun around to look at Kakashi who took one small look at her, flushed and put his hands over his eyes and mumbled an quick apology and slipped back out the door and closed it.

Once she was alone again she looked down at herself and frowned.

Why had he acted like that? It wasn't as if she was naked. She was wearing something. A pair of jeans and a red lace bra to match her red lace panties. Still she wasn't sure how to react at being seen in her bra by him. So she looked down at herself, again, for a second the shrugged her shoulders and pulled on her shirt then went into the bathroom to grab her tooth brush and fix her hair, then she would be ready to go.

Kakashi stood with his back against her door, his face flame red.

Had he just seen-

Had she been wearing a-

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. Oh god, now _all_ he was going to think about all day while on their date was that scandalous red lace she was wearing under her clothes.

It had been so sheer that he had been able to almost see the creamy color of her skin. He groaned again. Jesus, now he was going to be thinking of _all_ of the fun things that he could do with her beautiful body and that scandalous red lace.

_Man oh man, I am so fucked..._


	26. Chapter 26

Ten minutes later Uzu walked out of her room completely dressed and made her way to the stairs and stopped when she saw Kakashi leaning his back against the wall at the foot of the stairs, a lit cigarette in one hand, and his other hand was stuffed in his pants pocket. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be muttering, "Don't think about that. Don't think about that. Don't think about-"

"Think about what?" Uzu asked suddenly, her mind consumed by curiosity. Kakashi visibly jerked at the sound of her voice and pushed away from the wall and turned to look at her as she walked down the stairs. His heart hammered in his chest as he looked her over.

God she looked mouth watering in her shirt and pants. Even if he was suddenly _wishing_ that she had worn a dress or a skirt.

He took a second to think, trying to figure out why she had asked him that and finally made a humming sound when he realized that she had heard him muttering to himself about her bra and panties. "Uh...nothing- Say, what would you like to do first?" Kakashi asked in an effort to change the subject and steer Uzu away from anything that could make him think of that red lace she was wearing under her clothes.

He already felt nervous and uncomfortable enough for gods sake. He didn't want to talk about her choice in undergarments any further. Hell, he didn't even want to think about them. He was determined to act the part of a perfect gentleman for her.

For now anyways.

Uzu tilted her head to the side a little bit and frowned as she reached the bottom step. She had no idea what to do. She had never been on a date before and to be perfectly honest, she didn't really want to go on this one. She'd much rather go back up to her room and curl up in the closet again and try to get a little more sleep.

"Sorry. No clue." She said after a second or so. Kakashi shrugged his shoulders and took one last drag on his cigarette then licked his index and forefinger and placed them against the red tip.

There was a soft hissing sound and a little smoke, and then Kakashi pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and stuffed what was left of the one that he had just been smoking inside with the others then stuffed the pack back into his pocket and gave her an awkward smile.

Then reached for her hand and laced their fingers together so that the ring that he had given her the night before was pressed against the ring that he had put on his own ring finger.

The feel of the warm metal pressing against his skin made him smile as he led Uzu out the door and to the car.

Once inside of the vehicle he started the car and reached out and turned on the radio so that Uzu could listen to some music just in case she didn't want to talk, and backed out of the drive way and started to drive.

"So...you don't know what you want to do?" Kakashi asked curiously, hoping to try and start a small conversation. Uzu didn't answer him for a second or so before saying.

"No. Not really." Kakashi made a soft humming sound and glanced over at her for a second.

"Alright then. Until you figure something out, then we'll just hang out on the beach down town for a while." Kakashi said as he turned the car left on some road that she couldn't recall ever being on before as Uzu reached over and turned up the radio as Orchard Mines started to play.

Kakashi glanced over at her again when she started to sing along, the silvery tones of her voice mixing with the sounds of the music, drowning out the voice of the guy singing the song, startling him slightly. He had known that she had a pretty voice, but this went beyond just pretty.

Her voice was damn near hypnotic.

So much so that he forgot to watch the road for a minute and almost ran them right into a telephone pole but was saved when she reached over suddenly and grabbed the wheel and gave it a slight tug in her direction to straiten the car out and remind Kakashi that he was driving and couldn't afford to wreck the car with _her_ in the car.

His dad and his brothers would kill him if anything happened to Uzu because he was being stupid.

Twenty minutes later the car came to a total stop in the beach parking lot and he turned off the car and looked over at her again, his expression just a little bit anxious. "Do you wanna get out and walk around? Or would you rather sit here and watch the clouds and hold hands or something?"

"Is it okay if we just sit here and listen to the radio?"

Kakashi nodded his head. He had no problem with that. As far as he was concerned they could sit there and listen to the radio until the car battery died. If it would make her happy, then he didn't care.

He just wanted her to have a good time on their date.

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I think that this is it for this chapter.

I can't really think of what kakashi should do next so I'm going to leave it like this for now and come back to it later and make the chapter longer so don't hold this against me.


	27. Chapter 27

Alright my darlings. You asked for it so here it is.

The next chapter of the awkward first date.

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Kakashi was oddly sweet about the date despite the fact every time a song by Beyonce or Justin Timberlake played, he visibly cringed in his seat. Finally after the fourth or fifth song Uzu reached over and turned the radio down until it was almost inaudible and said, "Your not enjoying yourself are you."

Kakashi gave her a slightly startled look as he stopped fumbling around with his left pant pocket. He was so tied up in knots about making sure that Uzu had fun on their date that he was_ dying_ for a smoke.

"Wha? No. I'm having fun." Which wasn't far from the truth despite the fact that he was planning to maliciously rip his car radio out of the frigging dash board if he had to listen to one more damn _brain raping_ song by some dumbass guy who used to be in a boy band.

Uzu played with the ring that he had given her and gave him a sad smile. "Don't lie Kashi. Your hating this."

"What? No I'm not... I'm _hating_ the music. But everything else is fine. Have I told you that you look pretty yet? Cause you do. You look-" He looked over at her and stopped babbling in mid sentence and took a deep breath before saying softly. "You look very pretty."

Uzu blushed a little bit at his words and he grinned at her as he finally managed to fish his cigarettes out of his pocket. "Okay so if the music is the problem... Then why don't we change the station or something?"

"I refuse to touch the dial, Uzu-" Kakashi said as he pulled a cigarette out of the box in his hand and put it in his mouth before saying. "I don't know what sort of music you like so having me change the station would be a tad bit inconsiderate considering that this is our first date and all. I'm willing to sit through the boy band bullshit that girls like if it will make you happy. Just don't expect _me_ to be happy about it or like it any."

Uzu giggled as he lit his cigarette, drawing his mismatched eyes to her face, wondering what it was that she found amusing.

"Would you like to know a secret Kashi?" Uzu asked with an enigmatic smile. Kakashi nodded his head mutely and Uzu giggled again.

"I don't like this boy band bullshit either. It's all so stupid and annoying. If a guy is going to sing in a high pitched voice and sound like a girl then he should take the next logical step and_ become_ a girl. And FYI those annoying guys have nothing going for them but their looks. And even those are _nothing_ if you really look at them."

Kakashi gaped at her for the second time that morning and almost dropped his cigarette in his lap before he managed to pull himself together enough to laugh and say, "Hand me my CD case darlin. And I'll put something less annoying on the radio."

Uzu dug his large gray covered CD carrying case out from under her seat and handed it to him and let him flip through it before putting in a Breaking Benjamin CD and then turning up the volume as Diary of Jane started to play.

Kakashi made a happy sound as he snapped the CD case closed and set it aside as Uzu leaned across the seat and laid her head on his shoulder. Kakashi nearly dropped his cigarette again, and this time burned a small hole in his jeans before he managed to get it out of his lap and made a mental note to stop smoking since he was an accident waiting to happen. And focused instead on Uzu who hadn't been the least bit disturbed by his jumping around a second ago and seemed to be having fun humming along with the song.

Making the fact that he had almost burned his junk more than worth it. He took one last drag on his cigarette and then tossed it out the window and wrapped an arm around Uzu's slender shoulders and pulled her closer. "What do you say that after this we go hit an amusement park? I hear that the lines are short this early in the morning."

Uzu tipped her head back a little bit and looked up at him and smiled. "Okay. But only after the CD is done."

Kakashi's lips twitched in amusement as he gave her a slight squeeze. "Anything you want darlin."


	28. Chapter 28

Kakashi had been right about the amusement park.

The lines_ were_ short due to the earliness of the hour. In fact Uzu and Kakashi had only seen a hand full of people since entering the park. Which meant that they more or less had the run of the place. Something that Kakashi didn't like or dislike. He was too busy watching Uzu.

Ever since they had started riding some of the rides, he had noticed that Uzu was like an entirely different person. She had gone from quiet, shy and resurved; to _giggly_, mischievous, and playful.

She told jokes that made him laugh. Played some of the games.

She won five large stuffed animals, a tiger, a bear, a white bunny rabbit, a white wolf and a fox that Kakashi had to carry out to his car and stuff in his back seat and trunkof his car before coming back to where he had left Uzu and taking her hand and subtly moving her _away_ from the games.

He didn't have any more space in his back seat or trunk for any new toys that she might win. He walked hand in hand with her a little ways, wondering what she wanted to do next. He turned his head to ask her and jerked when he felt something graze his cheek.

He shook his head thinking that a bee had just grazed him and rubbed his cheek over the spot to make sure that he hadn't been stung and looked at Uzu, worried that whatever it was that had grazed him might be after her and caught her looking at him strangely before her expression grew shuttered.

"What's wrong?" Kakashi asked as he looked around.

Uzu didn't answer him, she just turned her head so that she was looking straight ahead and started walking away. That was when Kakashi _knew_ that he'd just fucked up and possibly just ruined his date with her.

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Uzu couldn't believe how stupid she felt about what had just happened.

I mean it was just a kiss on the cheek, yet Kakashi had acted as if she had just spat on him or something. She didn't understand him. He was the one who had suggest this date. The one who had more or less forced himself on her.

She could understand the one action. But not the other.

If he found her so distasteful then why had he given her a ring? Why had he kissed her and asked her to go on this date with him? Did he think that she was stupid? That she would allow him to play nice and lower her guard? Did he think that he could get into her pants? Have a good roll in the hay before he threw her away?

_Bastard._ It would never happen. She fisted her hands at her sides and fought back the urge to cry. He'd hurt her with his rejection.

And she'd be damned before she fell for his stupid 'nice guy' act again.

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Sorry it's such a short chapter. My head is killing me and I've been almost in tears for the past hour.

I'll try to update again later.


	29. Chapter 29

Well my darlings I've been reported again by another A*hole.

So if I stop updating with in the next day or so you have xoxoKakashixoxo to thank for it for trying to supress my freedom of speech and expression. Apparently like some other people I've come across, this person can't tell a _story_ from _reality_.

But not to worry, I done what I need too to make another profile for myself and I'll be around for a really, really long time because I like it here.

So- Anyone who runs into the person mentioned above, please let them know what you think of their bullshit. And while your at it please tell them that I said thanks for the heads up.

And because I'm a vindictive _bitch_, you can let them know that they have been reported for abuse too.

Now on to the story!

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Kakashi ran after Uzu intending to apologize to her for reacting like he had but lost her in the crowd.

That had been an hour ago, before other couples and families had come to the park making it more crowded and less easy for him to find her. He'd looked everywhere so far in the park, had checked every possible place that a girl with her feelings hurt may have run off too. He'd checked the haunted house, the rollercoasters, the swinging ship, the high rides the tilt a whirl-

And now was thoroughly convinced of one of two things. 1) Uzu was hiding from him in one the women's bathrooms, which meant that he would have to suck it up and go look in all ten of the damn things just to see if she really was there. And then there was 2) She was no longer at the park.

Meaning that she had either ditched him to go off somewhere and sulk or she may have been grabbed by some perv looking for some easy action.

Both option number two's worried and pissed Kakashi off.

He was getting tired. His body was unused to so much stress and it was wearing him out. He stopped by the lake to catch his breath and rest a little so that he could keep looking in a few minutes.

He stood doubled over with his hands on his legs a few feet from the railing that lined the park's lake. Panting, sweating, feeling like he was about to hurl or have a panic attack and was about to resume his search of her when he spotted her walking in the crowd, behind a family, towards him.

She had her hands stuffed in her pockets, her earlier happy expression was gone. Replaced by a blank apathetic look that caused Kakashi's heart to ache as he straightened his spine and started moving. He met her half way. In front of the arcade and grabbed her up in a tight hug.

"My god, Uzu.. Where did you go? I've been looking all over for you. Do you know how scared I was that something may have happened to you? Are you okay?" Kakashi babbled as he grasped her shoulders in his hands and pushed her away a little bit so that he could look her over and make sure that she really was okay. He didn't see any rips or tears in her clothes. Didn't see any scratches or bruises, anything at all to indicate that she may have been in danger.

Which was a relief to him.

Yet... The only true signs of distress that he noticed was the red rimming her eyes and her lack of expression. And since the distress she was in wasn't physical them that meant that it was emotional. He slid his hands up to frame her face and brushed her hair back from her eyes and looked at her, his heart thudding in his chest so hard that it felt it was about to punch a hole through his body.

"Uzu, baby, are you okay? Please say something."

"I want to go home." She said hollowly, Kakashi's anxiety spiked and he got a slightly pained look on his face for a second before nodding his head.

"Yeah... Okay... Home. We'll go home..." He said as he dropped his hands from her face and grasped her hand expecting her to grip him and squeeze a little bit like she usually does. She didn't. Her hand was completely limp in his own earning a slightly panicked look from him as he looked at her over one of his shoulders as they both started walking back through the amusement park towards the car.

He tried engaging her in conversation while they walked. Telling her how worried he had been about her, how much he'd missed her (even though they had only been apart for an hour) it had felt like forever to him. She remained unresponsive the whole time and Kakashi finally broke down once they reached the car and started crying.


	30. Chapter 30

Uzu sat in the car as Kakashi pushed the door closed and sighed. _Oh thank god_- They were going home.

And the second they got there she'd shut herself up in their dad's room and pretend that Kakashi didn't exist.

She heard him walk around the car to the driver side and open the door and climb in and leaned her head back against her seat and jumped when she felt him reach across her and grasp the seatbelt and buckle her in. She looked at him and was about to make a comment about not being a baby, she could fasten her fucking belt herself- but stopped.

Her mind came to a screetching halt as all words died on her tongue as she looked at him.

He didn't make a sound. He didn't speak. He just laid his head on the steering wheele and stared blankly at her and cried. Uzu stiffened a little bit in her seat and stared at him with an expression of horror. _Why was he crying? _

If anyone had the right to cry it was her.

_She_ was the one who had been played with. The one who had finally had a small taste of what it was like to be normal and unafraid. She was the one who had just had her heart ripped out.

So why the hell was _he_ crying?

She unfastened her seat belt and started to shift in her seat so that she could get closer and figure out what was wrong with him when he suddenly moved and pulled his door closed and sat up straight in his seat and wiped his eyes and then started the car. The next thing she knew they were peeling out of the amusement park, parking lot and heading north on the interstate.

In the opposite direction of their home.

"Uh- K-Kashi?"

"Fasten your seat belt Uzu." Was all Kakashi said as he maneuvered them further down the street like he was a mad man who had just shot up an office building and was participating in a high speed chase.

_Oh dear god-_ Uzu thought almost hysterically when they were almost hit by a semi before Kakashi could get them out of the way. It was official, he was going to kill them both in a bizarre murder/suicide.

She fastened her seat belt and mentally said a few prayers, unsure of what else she could do while she tried to figure out how to stop him from killing them both.

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He couldn't think. _Couldn't think, couldn't think, couldn't think- _If he had been thinking rationally then he would have realized that speeding down the highway at over eighty miles per hour was a very, very bad idea. But it was either this or something else...

Something possibly more damaging.

He needed a distraction so that he could think, but it was difficult with Uzu in the car with him. Okay, he needed to go over the events leading up to her running away from him. The first few hours of the date had gone smoothly. So smoothly that he'd been expecting her to ask him to go out again soon.

But then something had grazed his cheek. He'd thought it was a bee and jerked away from it to avoid getting stung. Honestly what person wouldn't react like that? But it hadn't been a bee. It had been Uzu trying to give him a kiss. Usually he preferred to have some sort of warning when a girl sought to kiss him. Especially if he was unaware.

But Uzu hadn't known that.

He could recall the look she gave him when he jerked away and looked at her. She'd had that wide eyed, stricken/hurt expression that he'd seen on other women's faces when he shot them down. Then she'd run away.

So it was safe to assume that he'd somehow hurt her feelings when he'd jerked away like that. He slowed the car gradually to a normal sixty miles per hour and turned on the radio to occupy Uzu as he glanced at her.

She was holding onto the 'oh shit' handle above her head looking a little bit green. Not that he could truly blame her any. He'd be a little bit green around the gills too if their places were reversed. Although in his defense, if she had been driving like a lunitic- he would have jumped out of the vehicle already and taken his chances with the other motorists on the road.

Eminem's Go Crazy started playing over the radio and he turned it up as they hit the outter city limits. Uzu looked out the window at the state sign as they passed it and started to hyperventilate a little bit before turning her head and looking at him with a nervous/anxious look on her pale face.

Where were they going? She wondered as she asked. "Uh- Kashi, you not going to murder me and leave my body somewhere out in some woods or something are you?" Her question was funny to him in his present state of mind. Which was why he glanced at her and gave her a sadistic smile just to make her squirm a little bit.

It worked. But not much as his words when he said, "Too easy." Uzu's eyes got as wide as saucers and he grinned and started drumming his fingers on the wheele as he drove and sang along with Eminem's song. Tuning Uzu out almost completely as he drove out of state.


	31. Chapter 31

Authors note- 1st of all I'm tempted to write a different version of Pet where the roles of Naru and Kakashi are reversed and the ages and occupations are different and such. I have an idea of how it would go, but I'll leave it to all of you to decide.

And item 2-

I'm so sorry for what is said about zebra and lepord print clothing! I'm not a cruel person I swear! I just think such printed clothes are tacky looking...

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He hadn't been joking when he'd said that simply killing and dumping her body somewhere would be too easy. But he hadn't expected her to take him so literally that she hyperventilated until she fainted.

Not that her present state bothered him too terribly much since he'd managed to pull the car over a while back and move her from the passenger seat to the back so that she would be able to recover while he tried to think of what he could do to make things up to her.

Somehow he doubted simple flowers and an apology would completely wipe the slate clean. Especially since he had been fucking with her head since leaving the state. He saw a small strip mall up ahead with a gas station at the end and quickly changed lanes so that he could stop there.

He needed to grab a map or two (since he was more or less lost) and maybe use the bathroom, buy some snacks and drinks and possibly a small gift for Uzu to occupy her until he stopped again. It only vaguely crossed his mind to try and wake her so that she could take a pee break too.

Vaguely.

But for now he'd let her sleep because he didn't want her making a scene about being kidnapped or something.

He pulled into the parking lot and parked the car on the far side of the strip mall, close to the gas station yet not so close that anyone could see that Uzu was more or less unconscious in the back seat and before turning the vehicle off, cracked the windows so that Uzu wouldn't get overly heated then slipped out and locked the doors and walked across the way to the bathroom.

He whizzed, washed his hands then walked out of the bathroom and decided to kill ten minutes or so looking for a gift for Uzu and walked along the side walk to a small boutique with clothing displays in the window and he looked over the clothes for a second then shrugged his shoulders as a small voice in his head said, _Why not. I have nothing to lose here but my head- _Especially if he got her something big and breakable since he was totally sure that she'd break it over his head.

And he wasn't sure if he could stand having a headache of that magnitude. So something small or made of cloth would work nicely.

He slipped into the store, trying hard not to cringe at the melodous 'ding-dong' that came from a little something or other attached to the door and noticed automatically that the person behind the counter a few feet away was now looking at him.

He gave the man an awkward/nervous smile and quickly moved away from the door and hid himself among the clothes racks and looked at the stuff there. But it was difficult for him to take an interest in women's clothing. That and everything he decided to pull from the rack and study a little more closely made him want to cry.

How could anyone think such drab colors and patterns cute. Zebra stripes and lepord print was better off on hookers. Stuff like that simply looked bad on nice girls like Uzu. He moved away from the rack that he'd been looking at for the past three minutes or so and moved over to the long rack hanging along the wall all the way at the back of the store.

And that is where he found the perfect gift. A lovely white knee length dress with elbow length sleeves and a little bit of white lace and ribbon. Lolita style wasn't something that he took interest in often due to his age but Kakashi genuinely thought that the dress would look wonderful on Uzu. To put things simply, it looked like something that an angel would wear.

And Uzu was the very definition of all things angelic to him. So it would be this dress or nothing. He draped the dress over his arm and headed back towards the front of the store when he noticed a glass display case and decided to go look at it before heading out. He walked over and leaned over it and noticed that it was a jewelry case and quickly scanned the items inside.

Nothing caught his attention...except for a little blue moonstone and sterling silver oval ring with little white fire opal and seed pearls around the middle stone and six little diamond chips in a scroll work band. God it was pretty. Even to a straight up manly man like him.

"Oh wow-" He muttered as he tapped his finger tip against the glass over the ring after checking the price then straightened his spine and waved the guy behind the counter just inside the door over.

He bought both the ring, and the dress and got a free pair of sterling and moonstone earrings to go with the ring as a complimentary gift. All in all it cost him seventy five bucks. Not bad, but he'd have to hit the ATM and use the debit card that Minato had given to him to use if he was ever far from home and in need of cash.

He went and put Uzu's gifts in the car yet pocketed the ring, for safety reasons, he told himself but that was just a lie. He simply wanted to give it to her on his terms. He wanted to see the look on her face when he gave it to her.

He'd bet that she would be speechless.


End file.
